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Thank you very much 


Page 11 



AFTER THE FAILURE; 


OR, 


A. LOSS AND A OAIN. 


BY 

ANNETTE LUCILLE NOBLE, 

AUTHOK OP 

“ Thk Professor’s Girls,” “ Silas Gower’s Daughters,” etc. 





PHILADELPHIA : 

PKESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK, 

No. 1334 CHESTNUT STREET. 




COPYRIGHT, 1887, BY 

THIS TRUSTEES OF THE 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION. 


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 


Westcott & Thomson, 
Stereotyjters and Electrotijiicrs^ Philada. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

A Summer Day 5 

CHAPTER II. 

The Edsons 29 

CHAPTER III. 

A Grim Reality 44 

CHAPTER IV. 

“What can She do?” 66 

CHAPTER V. 

The New Home 9S 

CHAPTER VI. 

Another Home ^ . . . . lOT 

CHAPTER VII. 

Miss Mears’s Household ]24 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Another Woman 139 

CHAPTER IX. 

“To See the World” 149 

3 


4 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER X. 

PAGE 

Dr. Felton, and Other Topics - 171 

CHAPTER XL 

A False Prophet 199 

CHAPTER XII. 

Sarah Set Aside 207 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Back Again 219 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Entering in by the Door 236 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Church-Sociable 250 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Margaret Changes her Mind 267 

CHAPTER XVII. 

One Afternoon 284 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

The Unforeseen 297 

CHAPTER XIX. 

After Many Days 315 

CHAPTER XX. 

Ending and Beginning 333 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


CHAPTER I. 

A SUMMER DAY. 

“So long as we have nothing to say to God, nothing to do 
with him save in the sunshine of the mind, when we feel 
him near us, we are poor creatures, . . . flowering reeds, it 
may be, and pleasant to behold, but only reeds blown about 
by the wind.” — George Macdonald. 

TT may be/’ said Doris Barton, swaying 
-L gently back and forth in a hammock, 
that I lack what is called by sensible peo- 
ple ‘a realizing sense of things.’ ” 

Doris was talking half to herself that 
beautiful morning late in August ; she had 
not known nor cared whether or not Miss 
Hears listened. Miss Hears was only the 
housekeeper who had superintended mat- 
ters while Doris had been at school. 

What sort of things don’t you realize ?” 
asked the woman, deferentially ; for Doris 

5 


6 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


was to her rather a superior kind of being — 
a young lady who could ‘‘ talk langwidges ’’ 
and paint from ‘‘live flowers,” one who wore 
kid gloves when she walked abroad. Then, 
too, Doris, if she was gentle and playful, had 
a certain dignity ; so that she filled well the 
position of lady of the house. 

“ Oh, here I have been home since June,” 
returned Doris, “and I am as lazily contented 
as that kitten over there rolling on your pan- 
sy-bed. I realize a few things — that the old 
house seems delightful after schoolrooms, 
that the roses are staying in bloom for my 
benefit, that the drives around the country 
roads are ever so pleasant. But that life 
should be thus an afiair of pink cotton, 
peaches and cream, sunshine and easy-going 
comfort, is not at all as it is put down in the 
books.” 

“ Don’t you like it?” 

“ Of course I like it. Miss Hears.” 

Doris sat a while looking across the velvet 
lawn to the street separated from the private 
grounds only by great drooping trees whose 
branches almost met those of the maples 
across the way. 


A SUMMBB BAY. 


7 


Miss Hears, sewing industriously on a 
calico apron, remarked, 

“ You haven’t got no call to worry much, 
certainly.” 

‘‘ But then, you know,” said Doris, ‘‘ that 
young people who merely enjoy themselves 
are considered frivolous; we know it our- 
selves. You ought to have heard our 
twelve graduation essays. Half of us told 
in them how we were standing on the 
threshold of life — one step more, and then 
trials, duties, missions, and all sorts of awe- 
inspiring what-you-may-call-thems, awaited 
us. The other half looked ‘ down the long 
vista of years’ and saw perfectly stupendous 
oaks that had grown out of our little indi- 
vidual acorns. Then the addresses inade to 
us ! Why, you would have thought that all 
Christendom — yes, and heathendom too — was 
just waiting outside the seminary door in 
breathless suspense until we, in our white- 
lawn ruffles, should appear to achieve some 
grand victory. Now, such talk must be 
pure nonsense. Don’t you think so, Sarah 
Hears ?” 

‘‘Well,” answered Sarah, who was not 


8 


AFTER THE FATLUBE. 


without an allowance of shrewdness, “ it 
would appear as if you were right when 
you think of the girls who leave seminaries 
and yet never do anything remarkable.” 

I can’t say that it was expressly under- 
stood that every single graduate was to have 
a career,” put in Doris, but not one of 
them was to escape those ‘ realities ’ of life. 
This brings me around to where I started. 
I do not find any of these character-testing, 
opportunity-furnishing ‘ realities ’ that the 
teachers and the preachers grew so solemn 
over.” 

Miss Mears bit off her thread in a way 
bad for her teeth, and sagely remarked. 

Last summer, when you and your pa 
went four hundred miles away to the sea- 
shore, I take it that you did not hear the 
ocean roar before you had cleared the town 
limits. Seeing that you have now been out 
of school only two months, and may have 
half a century or more to live yet, I reckon 
that you may be overtook by a reality of 
some sort sooner or later. You will know 
any one of them without their being labeled. 
Mostly always their elbows are sharp, and 


A SUMMER DAY. 


9 


they’ll dig them into your ribs without a 
‘ By your leave.’ Sometimes a whole family 
of them come at once, and then, Miss Doris, 
a body has company that ain’t entertaining 
nor easily entertained.” 

Doris laughed softly. Miss Mears was 
mildly amusing, but just then the latter 
remembered a duty forgotten and went 
away, leaving the young girl to reflect in 
this wise : Of course there were people — ^the 
poor, the ill, the friendless and the unfortu- 
nate — to whom life must mean trouble. At 
present it could not mean that to her. Doris 
was not shallow or hard-hearted. Years be- 
fore this, when her mother died, her grief 
had been intense, but it was a child’s grief, 
its first sharp outlines to be effaced by change 
of scene and by time. At school she had 
been very happy. Her attention just then 
was suddenly diverted by the sight of her 
father, who came up the gravel-walk to the 
front door, which he entered without seeing 
Doris in her shaded nook on the lawn. 

I do not remember that I ever saw father 
come home this time of day,” she said to her- 
self. “ I wonder if he is not well ?” Then, 


10 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


hearing a blind pushed open, she saw him 
moving about his room and thought no 
more of his appearance. 

There never was any familiar intercourse 
between Doris and her father. For the first 
thirteen years of her life home had meant 
mother to her — a mother whom Doris as 
she matured would learn to appreciate more 
and more as having been a Christian lady 
of rare wisdom and extreme refinement in 
thought and in conduct. In those days 
her father was just as now — a reticent, un- 
demonstrative man of business. He would 
wait, watch in hand, if one asked a favor, 
granting it easily enough if his time was 
not to be taxed ; otherwise, he would shake 
his head and say, I cannot be hindered.” 
When Mrs. Barton died, he sent Doris 
to an excellent school and installed Miss 
Mears as housekeeper. The latter was capa- 
ble, honest and sensible, and as he wanted 
only a superior servant, not a companion, 
her lack of education made no difference. 
When Doris returned, her school-life ended, 
he talked a little more, consulted her wishes, 
and it went without saying that she was to 


A SUMMBB BAY. 


11 


have as much pocket-money, as pretty attire 
and as many little luxuries as other girls 
whose fathers were in easy circumstances. 

Left alone, Doris read by snatches one of 
Miss Mulock’s stories, dropping it every now 
and then to watch the intensely blue sky, 
over which great snowy clouds were drift- 
ing ; or she turned, her head toward the old 
garden, full of flowers, fruit and vegetables 
growing together in disregard of all modern 
rules. There the bees hummed about a few 
hives and white butterflies danced over the 
many-colored asters. 

A footstep was perceptible on the soft turf 
behind her as Doris started toward the gar- 
den with a sudden impulse to get some pears 
just ripened there : 

‘‘ I thought you might like these peaches. 
Miss Doris, if yours are not ripe yet. I re- 
member last year you liked them.’’ 

Doris held out her hand for the dainty- 
looking basket of very large and beautiful 
peaches, and exclaimed, 

“ Thank you ever so much, John ! and it 
is so kind in you to set the date of my liking 
them only a year back ! I remember, when 


12 AFTEli THE FAILURE. 

I was several years younger, leaning over 
your garden gate and teasing you for just 
this kind of a peach/’ 

The young fellow addressed colored with 
pleasure as Doris, taking the basket, held 
out her hand in greeting. He had been a 
little afraid to renew acquaintance with Doris 
the young lady : as children they had romped 
together in hearty comradeship, but there 
seemed an inequality between them now. 

‘‘ I declare, you do not change a bit,” she 
said, looking him over merrily. ‘‘ I am an 
inch taller than you are.” 

“And you know a hundred times as much, 
no doubt ; but at last. Miss Doris, I am going 
to college.” 

John Edson, who was as old as the elegant 
young girl before him, was a plain rustic 
without a feature of the stylish young man 
of the times. He had a clear-cut, strong 
face, made unusually bright that moment by 
the news just communicated, but his un- 
gloved hands were hard with work and his 
“rough-and-ready” clothes were decidedly 
behind the fashion. 

“ I am glad of that; T have always thought 


A SC/MMBJi J)Ar. 


13 


you were better fitted for a profession than 
for farming. But why have you not gone 
before ?” 

Father never could spare me. His health 
has been poor, and he has for years been try- 
ing to pay off a mortgage on the farm. He 
promised me long ago, if I would work 
faithfully, that whenever he could he would 
let me go to college. I could not have worked 
harder, and I have studied along with it all; 
and so to-day the way is clear at last. This 
year’s crops are good ; we have money in the 
bank — enough to pay off all the mortgage 
next month, enough to start me and leave 
something against hard times.” 

As the two talked they had gone toward 
the piazza, where they seated themselves to 
chat a while. 

It always seemed to Doris that she knew 
all about this ‘'nice boy,” as she mentally 
styled him. In a slightly-condescending 
way she used to let him tell her about his 
studies and his plans. He was not given to 
talk of himself to people in general, but a 
peculiarity of Doris’s had always been her 
interest in people as individuals. She liked 


14 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


to know their motives, at what they were 
aiming, what they thought, felt and liked. 
John at thirteen had continued in the old 
schoolhouse to which he had often drawn 
her on his sled when she was a little girl. 
He had wished, when she went away to 
school, that he too was going away to see 
and to learn all that Doris would know in 
the next few years. Later, when he saw her 
in vacations, he was too proud or too shy to 
presume on the childish friendship, but Doris 
was sure, if they did meet, to get from him 
more of his inmost thoughts than he gave to 
any of the members of his family or to his 
familiar acquaintances. 

Taking a great peach from the basket, 
Doris turned it admiringly about, as if it 
were a flower, saying, 

‘‘ Well, John, to come right down to facts, 
I do not doubt that your education is on a 
much more ‘ solid basis,’ as father says, than 
mine. I know something of all the ologies 
Mr. Gradgrind taught in his school, but you 
used to think about your ‘ facts ’ and get a 
good deal out of a little. I suppose you 
are as determined as ever to be a lawyer?” 


A SUMMBB BAY. 


15 


‘‘No” 

“ Indeed ! Why not ?” she asked, in sur- 
prise. 

John colored, and then, covering his earn- 
estness with a laugh, said, 

“ Oh, I have grown conceited. I think I 
can be anything now. Once I could be only 
a lawyer; now I would like to be a minister.” 

“‘A minister’!” echoed Doris, with a 
vague impression that John was far too 
rustic, shy and unused to society ever to 
stand in fine clerical dignity and deliver 
elegant discourses to admiring congrega- 
tions. She had a very high ideal of the 
ministry as regards vests buttoned to the 
chin, exquisite gestures and what the gradu- 
ating class called “ real culture.” John was 
not exactly adapted to all that. “Can you 
— that is, could you — preach ?” she asked, 
adding, curiously, “ What made you change 
your ideas?” 

“ You are a Christian, are you not?” 

“Yes,” replied Doris; “I joined the 
church with six of my class three years 
ago. The principal thought I ought to do 
it, or perhaps I miglit not have decided so 


16 


AFTER THE FAILVRE, 


myself; but you were not a— You did not 
ever before — ” 

“ I never thought anything about such a 
thing until two years ago. There was a 
Methodist revival over in Hamden. Our 
folks are not Methodists, but I went over 
one night to hear ‘ the smartest man in the 
conference,’ as they called him. He did not 
preach, but a queer little dried-up old chap 
did, and half a dozen of us boys got up in 
the gallery and made fun of him. I heard 
his sermon all the same, and his text stuck 
like a bur, though I had heard it ever since 
I knew anything : ‘ The Son of man is come 
to seek and to save that which was lost.’ I 
can’t begin to tell you how many days after 
that I worked to those words, ringing changes 
on them separately. I don’t mean I was all 
stirred up thinking of my sins ; perhaps I 
ought to have been so, but instead I would 
plough a field thinking, ‘ Son of man. Son 
of God; was he? Then, is come;” why 
did the preacher not say “ came ” ? Is Christ 
come now to me T So it went on through 
the other words — the seeking, the saving, 
and the ‘lost.’ I worked in the field, in 


A SUMMBE DAY. 


17 


the barn, ate, studied and lived with those 
two lines in my head until — Well, I sup- 
pose it was until they worked their way into 
my heart. One day I was driving into town 
with a load of something ; I was going 
through the swamp, and, the road being 
heavy, I let the horses stop to rest. The 
text was just then out of my mind ; I was rest- 
ing too, everything was so still there in the 
woods. I remember the sumac-bushes were 
gorgeous red and yellow and the ferns were 
tall each side the narrow plank road. Then 
— I can’t tell you how it was — the written 
text became living reality : I knew some 
way that Christ is come and has found me. 
About the preaching? No, I don’t believe I 
ever could preach exactly as folks seem to un- 
derstand preaching from a tall piflpit, learn- 
edly teaching about the original Greek and 
Hebrew. I mean to study dead languages, 
but — Now, maybe you will not understand, 
but why can’t a minister go about his work 
like a lawyer who knows that the right and 
the justice and the law are all on his side? 
Such a man just says, ‘ I must make these 
people see the right;’ and they generally do 
2 


18 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


see it. There are such ministers, or I have 
read of them. They can^t grow dull, and 
they don’t spend time just being very 
learned, because all their life must be full 
of work showing how the Son of man is 
come ; and I suppose that every man, woman 
and child who doesn’t realize that coming 
seems to such a minister wandering out of 
the way.” 

“ Perhaps you mean to be an evangelist, 
preaching around anywhere in the streets ?” 
said Doris slowly ; continuing, ‘‘ I don’t like 
evangelists much. No doubt they are good, 
but as a general thing they are ignorant and 
do extravagant things and live around with- 
out any salary.” 

Doris did not mean to be offensive; she 
was wondering what sort of a future this 
was that John was sketching, and she was 
glad to hear him exclaim, 

‘‘ I do not mean to be ignorant or queer, 
and I despise a man who ‘ lives around ’ — 
that is, if he does not earn every morsel 
that he eats. I don’t know about evangel- 
ists, but you must be laughing at me for 
telling of preaching before I have got half 


A SUMM£;B dak 


19 


a mile yet from the barn-yard and John 
laughed himself. 

“ No/’ said Doris; ‘‘that is natural enough. 
I was telling Miss Hears only yesterday 
what sort of white lace caps I should wear 
at fifty. No; your plans are not so — ^so 
queer as it is to find you so — ” 

“I know now just what you mean/’ John 
interrupted, with boyish haste. “You think 
I am very good and religious all at once. 
Now, Doris, I am not good, but I have 
begun to realize a little bit what goodness 
means; I never did before. I have as much 
temper as I ever had — more, it seems to me, 
some days. There is not a fellow that I 
ever hated that it would not be pretty easy 
for me to pitch into this minute. I am just 
John Edson as much as ever, but I am John 
headed another way and following a Leader. 
Don’t suppose I talk to everybody as I have 
talked to you ; I could not do it. I never 
before told any one about that day in the 
swamp.” 

“ Well, John, I am glad you are going to 
college, for I kn.ow you will succeed, you 
are always in such dead earnest. Even when 


20 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


you used to snowball the girls by the old 
schoolhouse, you never would make nice soft 
balls, but you fairly knocked the breath out 
of us with your missiles. You hit my 
dinner-basket once and ruined a cranberry 
tart.” 

“Yes; but I remember that when you 
sat down and cried about it I offered you a 
whole stick of spruce gum,” laughed John ; 
“ so it is ungenerous to mention my atoned- 
for evil deeds.” 

After a little more talk upon various 
topics, John Edson went home. 

“ I would like him for a brother,” mused 
Doris, “ if he were taller and more stylish. 
Of course he would then not have the coun- 
try air about him, and would manage easy 
small-talk better. Fancy any other young 
fellow I know tumbling into such a confi- 
dence as he bestowed on me! I like him 
for it of course, but he will get bravely over 
his extra goodness in college if what the 
schoolgirls tell of their brothers is true. 
Queer that we are always like friends, when 
I see him scarcely once a. year and do not 
know the rest of his family at all. I must 


A SUMMER DAY. 


21 


ask Miss Hears about them ; she ' knows 
every one in and around the town. Oh 
what a lovely clump of white asters has 
blossomed over there by the fence !” she 
exclaimed, forgetting John Edson and his 
plans. 

‘‘ Miss Doris,” said Miss Hears, thrusting 
her head out of the dining-room door, ‘‘ your 
father wants to speak to you ; he is going 
away.” 

‘ Going away’ ! Where ?” repeated Doris, 
in surprise. 

Miss Hears had disa23peared when Doris 
entered the house and hastened to the library, 
hearing her father’s voice. He was direct- 
ing: the man to harness the horse and be 
ready to take him and a large portmanteau 
to the station. 

‘‘ Where are you going, father ? and shall 
you be gone long ?” asked Doris. 

‘‘ I am going to several points and start- 
ing rather unexpectedly — on business mat- 
ters, of course,” Mr. Barton replied as he 
stood by an open desk from which he was 
taking papers. He hurriedly replaced most 
of them, relocked the drawers and turned 


22 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


to Dons as if there were something he would 
tell her if he had time. ‘‘ You will attend 
to matters while I am gone. There is 
really nothing for you to do. I will write 
you from the first place I can. You spoke 
of wanting a new piano ; here are two hun- 
dred dollars, but don’t get the instrument 
under several weeks,” he remarked, giving 
her an envelope containing money. 

Why, father !” she cried, with a hearty 
laugh. “ The idea of my picking out a 
piano without your advice, when I have 
never bought as much as a footstool on my 
own responsibility !” 

‘‘ Well, well, child, keep the money for 
it, or for whatever else you would rather 
buy hereafter. I will not wait for lunch ; 
have Sarah bring me a cup of strong tea.” 
He was evidently in great haste and seemed 
somewhat excited in his manner. As Doris 
turned to order the tea he said, “ Take good 
care of yourself,” and, drawing her to him, 
he kissed her more affectionately than usual. 

Soon after. Miss Hears came with tea and 
a sandwich, which Mr. Barton took stand- 
ing by the table. Putting down the tea-cup 


A SUMMBB DAY. 


23 


when she had gone out again, he said to 
Doris, 

“There is a possibility that I may be 
hindered, and then I may not — find — time 
to write; in view of the last contingency 
I leave these written instructions for you. 
Put the paper into your writing-desk care- 
fully where you cannot lose it, and remem- 
ber what I say. Do not open this paper 
within three weeks.’’ 

“ Why, you will be back before that time, 
will you not ?” cried Doris, in great surprise, 
as he put a second sealed envelope in her 
hand. 

“Horse and carriage is ready, sir,” said 
Michael, appearing at the door. 

Mr. Barton seized his bag excitedly, re- 
signed it to Michael, looked about the 
library and the hall in a strangely earnest 
way, shook Doris’s outstretched hand and 
hurried to the carriage. 

“ Your pa goes away from home so seldom 
that he is as flustered as if he were going to 
Europe,” said Sarah Mears, coming to see 
the departure. 

Doris ran out on the lawn to get her book. 


24 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


came back and read a while in the piazza, 
and by lunch-time she had quite forgotten 
her father’s absence. In the afternoon she 
had Michael harness her white pony, Nelly, 
into the basket phaeton, and, telling Miss 
Mears that she should not be home until 
tea-time, she drove away. 

It was one of these magnificent afternoons 
of late summer when a golden haze seems to 
fill the air and all the tints of the landscape 
are vivid with summer’s beauty, heightened 
by the first glow of autumn’s scarlet and 
purple. Doris, though by no means un- 
social, resolved to take no one with lier. 
She was a little given to day-dreams and idle 
pleasant reveries, so, curling down in the 
soft cushions, she started Nelly on a gentle 
trot, and they went down the shaded street, 
over the river-bridge and away to country 
roads. Sometimes she tied the pony to a 
fence and made excursions into the woods 
for pretty ferns or bits of moss; once she 
took up a little girl trudging home from 
school with her spelling-book and her din- 
ner-pail. She asked her about the people 
in the farmhouses, and thought what hum- 


A SUMMER EAV. 


25 


drum lives they led. Not that Doris’s own 
life had been exciting, but she had a happy 
consciousness to-day that her life was going 
to be very charming. It was pleasant now ; 
after school restrictions and curtailed liberty 
she felt a new sense of power. When she 
left the little girl at a weatherbeaten cottage, 
she let Nelly pace lazily along a grass-grown 
lane while she mused thus : 

“Next year I will naturally be a little 
tired of these things that please me now, and 
I believe I will make father send me abroad 
for a year or two. Madame Chapelle is 
going to take Governor Wilder’s daughters 
for a tour, and they were both fond of me ; 
I know they would like me to go with them. 
Father does not need me at all.” 

That idea sent Doris off on long delight- 
ful fancies of English cathedrals, Paris shops 
and Italian galleries, of plans to study more 
French and German, to read more authori- 
ties on art and architecture — to get ready 
for the future, in short. She would have 
kept Miss Mears’s supper waiting if Nelly 
had not taken on herself the responsibility 
of going home at the proper time. Once 


26 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


there, Doris found herself very hungry, and 
heartily enjoyed the warm cakes, the cold 
fowl and the delicious peaches and cream. 

‘‘Yes,” she exclaimed, with a laugh, as 
she folded her napkin and looked from the 
great west window at a gorgeous sunset, “I 
am going right against all those high-flown 
sentiments that I have heard for the last 
few years. I am lazy, contented and may 
be getting fat. I am very glad I am myself. 
What if I were a poor boy, now, like John 
Edson, just going to fight my way in the 
world ? I should not like that one bit. — Do 
you know the Edsons, Sarah ?” 

“ Oh, I ain’t real intimate with any of 
them, but I know all about them. Amos 
Edson came from Maine; good family up 
there. Amos has always had poor health 
and bad luck; folks say that he has been 
too honest, losing when sharper men would 
gain, and so he has kind of lost heart. His 
wife is a good-enough-meaning woman, but 
a sort of a wearing creature, taking doleful 
views of life ; but then she has found it dole- 
ful, I suppose. There is a girl — a stiff, 
glum-looking one, a little older, I guess. 


A SUMMBE BAY. 


27 


than John. John has his father’s good 
points, I have heard, and considerable grit 
of his own. Folks think he will make 
something of himself if he has a chance.” 

‘‘ I know he will,” said Doris, humming a 
song as she rose from the table and went to 
play the piano a while. She was not lonely, 
although the cool, flower-perfumed parlors 
were silent until she came, and in all the 
beautiful great house there was no companion 
for her. There was a score of gay young 
girls whom she could soon summon from 
equally pleasant homes if she wished them. 
She did not wish for anything she did not 
possess — at least, not that day. A few hours 
later, as she lay awake with the beams of 
the harvest-moon filling her own pretty 
room with radiance, she thought to herself, 

‘‘ John Edson asked me if I were a Chris- 
tian. Well, of course he could not know 
unless he asked, as I did not join the church 
here. What a good woman my mother 
must have been ! How interested I used to 
get when she read the Bible to me ! I sup- 
pose one reason was that I was so young 
that everything made a vivid impression on 


28 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


me. I like to read it now — if my head is not 
too full of something else — but I don’t — 
Well, I suppose children like the stories of 
the Bible, and old people who have had no 
end of trouble like it because it comforts 
them in some way; but when a person is 
neither very young nor real old— Why, 
naturally one does not feel so very much 
interested in Bible-reading. Perhaps it is 
wicked, but any way in my case it is true. 
How absurd in father to think I would buy 
a new piano before he got back, when my 
old one is almost good enough ! Yes, I 
believe I will go to Europe and bring home 
no end of lovely things to make this house 
delightful ; every place over there has some 
special article of beauty for sale, people tell 
me. I will buy Swiss wood, amber and 
coral, photographs and statuettes, Paris 
dresses, and I really will improve myself. 
Father is rich — there can’t be any question 
of that — and — and — ” 

Doris was fast asleep. 


CHAPTER II. 


THE EDSONS. 

“ Every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor.”— 
Emerson. 

M AHGAHET EDSON was undeniably 
‘‘glum-looking/’ as Miss Mears had 
remarked, but she was not older than 
John:’’ she was just seventeen. Doris Bar- 
ton would have known why she appeared 
so plain, and would have said it was her 
‘‘merciless” way of dressing herself. She 
was a tall, thin girl who had decided that 
she was very homely and had sullenly ac- 
quiesced, but her features were fine, and her 
complexion was the same when heightened 
by bright colors. Her dark gray eyes could 
sparkle, though they seldom did. Her abun- 
dant brown hair need not have been so unbe- 
comingly arranged, and the pretty costumes 
that Doris wore would have made her a fit 
subject for the application of that adjective 

29 


30 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


dear to the girlish mind, ‘‘stylish.” Mar- 
garet had no such costumes ; she often said 
that she had “nothing like other people.” 

The young girl was sitting in the vine- 
covered porch before the door one afternoon 
resting after a hard morning’s work ; her 
mother was sewing just by the threshold 
of the plain but cozy sitting-room. Mother 
and daughter were very neat, so the faded 
carpet, the patched haircloth sofa and the 
well-darned curtains showed care and good 
housekeeping. If Margaret had filled the 
old vases with garden flowers and put a 
bit of color somewhere in the shape of a 
cheap cushion or a red mat, the place might 
have been attractive. She never thought it 
worth while. If life came to her poor, 
patched and lacking brightness — as it had 
come — she submitted, seeing no way of 
making anything easier. 

“What makes you sit down in that old 
calico dress, Margaret? Somebody will be 
calling.” 

“We don’t have a caller once a month — 
at least, not any one who wears better clothes 
than these I have on, mother.” 


THE EDSONS. 


31 


‘‘You might have some society if you 
would.’’ 

“Yes; I might have Alice Ward — the 
second-girl at Judge Parker’s — perhaps, but 
I am as good as Judge Parker’s daughter 
Mary, only for money.” 

“Well, I don’t believe at all but that if 
you were to put your pride in your pocket 
and try to be friendly with Mary herself she 
would notice you.” 

“ ‘ Notice me ’ ! ” scornfully exclaimed Mar- 
garet. “Do you think I want her notice f I 
don’t want any friends unless I can meet 
them on a perfect equality. Alice Ward 
is ill-bred, if she is a farmer’s daughter. 
Mary is well-bred and no better educated 
than I am, but she would have to patronize 
me, and I will not be patronized.” 

“ Well, you will have to drudge along all 
your life, probably, as I have done,” said 
Mrs. Edson, a delicate, peevish woman with 
a wailing note in the tones of her voice when- 
ever she spoke. 

Margaret suddenly rose and stepped inside 
the door. 

“Anybody coming?” asked her mother. 


32 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


‘‘Doris Barton is riding by,” said Mar- 
garet. 

The mother stretched forward to see the 
pretty turnout and Doris in her broad hat 
with white feathers and a many-ruffled blue 
silk dress. She returned to her sewing with 
the comment, 

“ John has seen her somewhere lately, and 
he says she is nice ; but such girls are often 
civil to a young fellow if he is a nobody when 
they would despise his family. The Edsons 
and the Wellses — my folks — were every bit as 
good as the Bartons, though, and only money 
now makes the difference.” 

“ I don’t hate people who have money,” 
broke out Margaret, sharply. “Any one, 
to hear us talk, might think that I do; but 
when I see a girl like this Miss Barton with 
twice as much money as she needs, it doesn’t 
seem just. Why couldn’t we have that over- 
plus ? Year after year poor father has had 
such hard work, and has worried until he is 
bent and gray long before he is really old. 
You would like to travel and have some 
society; you can’t, and you never can, as 
I see. John has had to work like a ditch- 


THE EDSONS. 


33 


digger, when the money some boys spend in 
cigars and boats and bicycles would have 
sent him through college by this time. I 
would like, of course, fine dresses and ser- 
vants and style, and all that, but not to 
have these is not what galls me. No, it is 
the better things that poverty cheats us 
out of.’’ 

‘‘ What things ?” asked her mother. 

Oh, I can’t explain it exactly, but that 
time Mrs. Hilton had the fever and I went 
in to sit by her a few times, so the family 
could leave her a while, I realized that pov- 
erty sharpened and belittled people. All 
these mean worries and vexations drop out 
where people are rich enough to put work 
on paid servants, and to read and think and 
surround themselves with lovely pictures and 
things. Why should not Doris Barton be 
nice now? I wonder how nice she would 
be in ill-fitting, shabby clothes, making 
bread, packing butter and trying to stretch 
five cents to ten?” 

Margaret was bitter where her mother 
was merely discontented, but the latter, in- 
stead of agreeing with her daughter, was 

3 


34 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


wise enough to endeavor to show her a 
bright side to their circumstances. 

‘‘Well, don’t get blue, child,” she ex- 
claimed, quite cheerily for her ; “ very likely 
better times are coming. John may make a 
more successful man for the tough struggle 
he has had, and he is going to college at last. 
Your father feels a great load off him now 
that the money is all raised to pay the mort- 
gage, and I have been thinking, Margaret, 
that you ought to have some sort of a chance. 
There is no girl of your age in town who 
knows any more of books than you; I’m 
sure of that. Don’t you get downhearted.” 

“ Go and lie down, mother ; you look all 
tired out,” said Margaret, taking the sewing 
from her mother’s hands. 

In a grim way Margaret was one of the 
kindest and most helpful of daughters. Her 
mother’s fretfulness never provoked her to 
disrespect. She almost idolized her silent, 
discouraged father, and no sister was ever 
prouder of a good brother than Margaret 
was of John. A third person entering this 
family would have wondered where John 
got his energy, so infused with light-heart- 


THE EDSONS. 


35 


ediiess, his hopeful, enthusiastic disposition. 
The hardest day’s work never left him un- 
able to make his melancholy mother laugh. 
When Amos Edson sat down at evening to 
harassing thoughts of poor crops or unpaid 
bills, out would come John’s fiddle, and his 
clever playing of lively old tunes would 
cheer the music-loving father. There was 
love enough in this humble home to have 
made rich happiness, but Margaret Edson, 
like Doris Barton, had not waked up to the 
realities, Margaret saw nothing beyond or 
beneath poverty, recognized no beauty in 
homely things. 

Supper was ready in the tidy kitchen, and 
from the west window Mrs. Edson was watch- 
ing Amos. 

“What does keep that man talking so 
long with Jim Howard ?” she exclaimed at 
last. “ They have stood there by the stone 
wall for five minutes since I rang the bell. 
Jim has been to town and has heard some 
news, I presume ; he is proper tedious when 
once he gets a-going. — Have you been in 
town to-day, John ?” 

“ No ; we have been thrashing all day. I 


36 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


shall go this evening if I can get a lift in. 
I am pretty tired myself/’ he answered. 

“ There, Margaret ! take the meat off the 
stove ; your father is coming. It has been 
a real hot day, and a hard one for him ; he 
looked beat out this noon.” 

The food was all on the table, but Mr. 
Edson did not come in. Margaret, going to 
the open door, said, 

“ Why, he is leaning on the fence, as if he 
were faint. Run, John, quick !” 

The three hurried out, John getting first 
to his father, who was apparently only half 
conscious. They almost carried him into 
the house and stretched him on the old 
chintz-covered lounge under the window. 
In the sunset light he looked ghastly. 

‘‘ Oh, John, jump on a horse and run for 
a doctor,” cried Mrs. Edson. “ Is he faint 
or is it a sunstroke, do you think ?” 

John, who was working over his father, 
answered. 

It must be over-work and the heat. 
See ! he is conscious now. Do all you can, 
and I will get some doctor here soon as ever 
I can.” 


THE EDSONS. 


37 


The poor man's lips moved, yet he seemed 
too weak to speak, but neither of the two 
left with him were as alarmed as was John. 
They were sure it must be something that 
would soon pass off — or, at least, they were 
thus confident after Amos seemed to recog- 
nize them. Before John left him he noticed 
that one arm hung heavy like a lifeless 
weight. 

The doctor came and did what he could. 
When, a half hour later, John followed him 
to the gate, he said plainly, 

Yes, it is a pretty severe stroke of 
paralysis, affecting the whole of one side. 
I can’t say that I am surprised ; your father 
has been looking bad, John, for months, and 
the fact is he had the slightest possible shock 
of paralysis a year ago, when you all called 
his illness malarial fever. He may get up 
— that is, to be out of his bed — but his 
working days are over.” 

John, who had scarcely taken his eyes 
from the doctor’s face since he came, gave 
a faint groan, but he asked no question. 
The dreadful truth seemed to cover all ques- 
tions that one could ask. 


38 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


‘‘ It comes suddenly, but that is the very 
nature of -paralysis,’’ said the doctor, linger- 
ing — not because he had any more to say, but 
from sympathy with this young fellow, whom 
he liked. He asked John a few questions, 
repeated his professional advice, and then 
exclaimed rather abruptly, ‘‘Has your father 
money in the bank ?” 

John stared blankly; then into his boyish 
face, pale hitherto, there came an angry rush 
of blood, and he stammered indignantly, 

“You shall be paid. Dr. Hughes.” 

“ Tush ! tush, my boy ! Don’t you know 
what I mean ? I was wondering if excite- 
ment brought this on. You know the Bar- 
ton Bank has gone to smash ?” 

“ ‘ The Barton Bank’!” echoed John, un- 
able to grasp the thought. 

“Yes; greatest excitement in town ever 
known there. Why, people thought that 
bank as safe as the United States treasury, 
but Barton has been speculating, it seems, 
and he has used up everybody’s trust money 
— has lost a million, and skipped, of course. 
I did not know but your father had heard 
of—” 


THE EDSONS. 


39 


The d :ctor stopped, silenced by something 
fast coming into John’s face. It was ashy 
white as he gasped, 

“ Everything was there — the mortgage 
money, my college fund, every cent father 
has. Can’t we draw it to-morrow?” 

“ My poor fellow ! There has been a 
howling mob around the bank door all the 
afternoon. They say one man has gone 
raving crazy. I don’t suppose one of us 
will ever get ten cents on a dollar — no, nor 
one cent. Five thousand dollars of mine 
have vanished. Barton would be torn into 
string-pieces if he were to appear in town 
to-night. He will not; there is no chance 
of that : he sailed in a Dutch steamer last 
Tuesday. They think that he went abroad ; 
nobody knows for certain.” 

John seemed so completely stunned that 
the doctor continued : 

‘‘ I declare ! I would not have told you 
right on the heels of your father’s trouble 
if I had supposed you did not know already ; 
but nothing else is talked of, or will be for 
days to come.” 

John was trembling so much that for 


40 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


support he grasped a pillar of the piazza 
as he whispered, 

‘‘ It would kill mother, added to this about 
father; I will not let her know to-night. 
Yes; father may have heard it from Jim 
Howard. I remember now that he was 
telling father something just before we found 
him almost senseless at the gate.’’ 

John’s voice sounded to himself like the 
faint, hollow tone of one who has long been 
ill ; indeed, his own limbs seemed to have 
lost their power as he turned back into the 
room filled with the last red after-glow of 
sunset. He sank into a chair and aroused 
himself only when Margaret called him. 
The next few hours he seemed like one with 
a nightmare. He mechanically helped to 
get his father into the small bedroom known 
hitherto as the '‘spare-room;” he urged his 
mother and Margaret to eat and drink ; he 
went out and attended to all the night-w^ork 
at the barn. He could not think collectedly 
until night; then, having prevailed on his 
mother and his sister to try and sleep, John 
stretched himself on a sofa, within sight of 
his father’s bed. 


THE EDSONS. 


41 


Mr. Edson suffered no pain and rested 
in a half stupor; John had nothing to do 
but to think. His father’s life was in a 
sense ended. After years of honest labor, 
of pathetic striving after the means to make 
his dear ones comfortable, the tired hands 
had dropped work for ever. Now he must 
be cared for lovingly, must hereafter be up- 
held instead of leaned upon. How? As 
John weighed Hr. Hughes’s statements in 
regard to the bank and pondered on what 
he knew of his father’s affairs, he realized 
that they would at once be reduced from 
comparative independence to absolute pov- 
erty. The farm must be sold to pay the 
mortgage; that done, he, a boy of nineteen, 
must be the sole support of father, mother 
and sister. Every bright picture of the future 
college course came out suddenly vivid before 
his eyes, and then like a dissolving-view 
melted into gray nothingness. John began 
to be a man in the darkness of that night. 
Life was not to. be hereafter a march to 
victory, but a bare struggle for existence or 
for the bread to support it. 

John sat u[) as if to shake off some actual 


42 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


pressure from his heart. He had met at 
last — had he? — the realities of life, sorrow, 
suffering, and by and by the death of that 
dear gray-headed old father ; sin and wrong 
in the person of this treacherous, cold-hearted 
banker who had stolen all their hard-earned 
savings and left them penniless ; last of all, 
a grinding, bitter poverty that would make 
what had gone before in their experience to 
seem like luxury. Why had God so dealt 
with them ? All his life long Amos Edson 
had served the Lord ; why should he be 
forsaken and cast down now? And John? 
Had he not borne the yoke in his youth? 
Was he not eager to become a power for 
good in the world ? Bitter questions these, 
dragging after them doubt, rebellion and 
despair if once John opened his heart to 
them. But as the night wore on it came to 
him to ask, ‘‘ Are there no realities of faith 
and hope stronger and more eternal than 
these others that have fallen on us like 
thunderbolts? Can I prove what I have 
always been hearing — that God will help ? 
I cannot pray that what has happened shall 
be undone, but God can carry me through.” 


THE EDSONS. 


43 


It was not until long after that night that 
John realized how powerfully he was helped 
when he resolved to avail himself of all the 
strength that * Heaven would grant him. 
Courage and energy seemed to come hack 
to him, tenderness toward all dependent on 
him and firm determination to hold his own 
in the strife. Sarah Hears would have 
called it pure grit.” It was a good deal 
of that, with more of grace than John had 
ever needed before. At daybreak he was 
sleeping as peacefully as if a thick veil had 
not dropped between his vision and the 
future which yesterday was so bright. 


CHAPTER III. 

A GBIM REALITY. 

“ Do not grope : 

For ever shines some small sweet hope, 

And God is not too late.” 

W HEN Doris returned from her after- 
noon ride on the day last mentioned, 
she found Miss Mears looking for her with 
an anxiety which struck her as absurd. 

“ I was almost afraid something had hap- 
pened to you, you stayed so long,” exclaimed 
the housekeeper, coming to meet her at the 
door. 

‘‘Nonsense, Sarah! You must be growing 
fussy. I often stay out until six.” 

“Yes, I know you do. Did you stop any- 
where ?” 

“ Only to get some dahlias at the green- 
house. See! a lovely variety, almost as 
beautiful as camellias.” 

“ You did not go past the- — down town, 

44 


A GRIM REALITY. 


45 


did you ? Several persons have been here 
asking when your father would be home. 
He did not say a word, did he, about where 
he was going 

“ He did not,’’ replied Doris, a little coolly, 
thinking Miss Hears unduly curious. 

You are not going out any more to-day, 
are you ? I* would not go ; you look tired.” 

‘‘I am not in the least tired,” said the 
young girl, ‘‘and after supper I intend to 
go for a walk.” 

“ Oh, don’t! I mean — Well, it is lone- 
some for me with nobody in the house. 
There comes old Miss Taylor to call. Don’t 
see her, Doris ; run up stairs. I will excuse 
you. You must not see her now.” 

Doris was staring in indignant surprise at 
Miss Mears’s strange and new interference. 
She even started to enter the parlor and 
await Miss Taylor there, when Sarah fairly 
swept her into the library, whispering, 

“Something has happened. I want to 
explain it before you see her.” 

Much bewildered and a little amused, 
Doris sank into a great plush chair. Miss 
Taylor detained the housekeeper several 


46 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


moments, and Doris was getting interested 
in a new magazine when the latter re- 
turned. 

“ I was afraid you would hear something 
that would trouble and frighten you. There 
is a great ado down town ; folks have got an 
idea that your pa’s business affairs are — 
mixed. There has been a run, -as they call 
it, on the bank, and, some way, there isn’t 
money enough to go around the crowd, so to 
speak.” 

“ But pray tell me why they do not wait 
until father gets back and opens the vaults 
or takes out the money from wherever it is,” 
exclaimed Doris. 

Exactly so ; but people are always un- 
reasonable and — and — Well, ridiculous 
stories are going the rounds. Your pa 
hasn’t written yet, has he?” 

“Of course not; he has been gone only 
four or five days. But what do you mean 
by ‘ ridiculous stories,’ Sarah ?” 

Miss Mears began an elaborate arrange- 
ment of the books on the library-table as 
she hurriedly answered : 

“ Oh some sort of — Well, they insinu- 


A gutm reality. 


47 


ated that your pa knew this trouble was 
coming and got out of the way.” 

“ Why, what good did they think it would 
do his business to leave it for a few days ?” 
asked Doris, with an ignorance of the real 
situation that made Sarah’s heart ache as 
she added, What a pity that I do not know 
just where to write to him ! I would tell him 
to come home at once.” 

Miss Mears carefully avoided heightening 
the impression of her words, and at supper 
she was surprised to see that Doris had al- 
most dismissed the subject from her thoughts. 
To Sarah’s relief, she did not go out, but sat 
down to read the magazine that had interested 
her. 

Next morning there was a cold rain with 
an east wind, at which Miss Mears rejoiced, 
for she knew that if Doris were to go out 
she could scarcely fail to hear her father 
denounced on every street-corner. After a 
day she hoped for she scarcely knew what, 
but she dreaded the shock that Doris must ex- 
perience if rudely enlightened. She guarded 
her that day from all callers, but, alas ! she 
forgot the village newspaper, which Michael 


48 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


left, as usual, on the library-table. Doris took 
it up, and almost instantly her glance fell on 
the heading, 

‘'Andrew Barton, the Defaulter, sup- 
posed TO HAVE FLED TO CANADA AFTER 
MAKING Way with Great Sums of Money. 
Affairs not Cleared Up, but Barton’s 
Guilt a Certainty.” 

Then followed a long article telling of the 
faith business-men had put in this man 
who had betrayed them — how, as it had 
been discovered, he had speculated with 
trust funds and had lost great sums. A 
sudden fall in the stock market made in- 
evitable the discovery of his dishonesty. 
Knowing this. Barton escaped just in time 
to avoid arrest. A terrible state of excite- 
ment, grief and rage prevailed among those 
who had been his victims. Prosperous busi- 
ness-men were ruined; widows and oTphans 
who supposed themselves comfortably off for 
life were now penniless, and hard-working 
mechanics who had laid by their earnings 
for sickness or old age had not a farthing 
after years of labor and economy. 

It was the same story, told in almost the 


A GRIM REALITY. 


49 


same words, that one reads on the pages of 
every city daily paper — alas for the times ! — 
but to Doris Barton it was a shock as dread- 
ful, a disclosure as sickening, as if this deed 
were an unknown crime never before com- 
mitted. It did not once occur to her that it 
might be untrue, for the charges made were 
fearfully definite. She understood now that 
hasty departure to a nameless place. Doris’s 
love for her father had been largely made up 
of respect. Indeed, so apart from him had 
she always lived that she thought of him 
somewhat as the public had always esteemed 
him. He had seemed wise, strong, self-suf- 
ficient, a citizen whose interests were bound 
up with the welfare of the town, a good fa- 
ther and a man to be trusted. Poor Doris ! 
as she sat shivering and pale she tried to 
think what all this meant. Her dignified 
father a fugitive from justice! everybody 
outside the library wall talking of him as 
they would talk of a scoundrel! people 
going to suffer through him, to be poor 
for his evil deeds ! Why, only about three 
months before she had read in this same 
paper how “ Our public-spirited fellow- 

4 


50 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


townsman Andrew Barton has given five 
hundred dollars toward a free library for 
mechanics, and will aid in starting a night- 
school for young men who are busy during 
the day,’’ etc. A half column of praise for 
this man, her father I She was horrified at 
his dishonesty; she was frightened at her 
own condemnation of him. She was sud- 
denly moved to find excuses — or, at least, 
reasons — for his conduct; he might not be 
so blameworthy. She pitied him ; she was so 
glad that her mother had not lived to suffer 
this. Her heart was like a stone, her head 
giddy with the rush of conflicting emotions. 
She sat there until Sarah came to light the 
gas; then, understanding how kindly the 
latter had tried to shield her, she said, 

‘‘ Sit down, Sarah, and tell me just how 
this seems to you and what there is that I 
do not know. I have read it in the paper.” 

“ Well, dear child, you must not take it 
so to heart. Such things happen continually. 
Your poor father got inta money perplexities, 
and likely as not he never meant to harm a 
soul. I would not wonder a bit if, when 
folks cool down, he would come back and 


A GRIM REALITY. 


51 


explain things and pay off his debts and — 
and — ” 

Sarah’s conscience pricked her for the 
last statement, so she exclaimed with forced 
vivacity, 

Things are never so bad as they seem at 
first in such a case.” 

Doris, who never had given business-mat- 
ters half a dozen intelligent thoughts, bright- 
ened, saying. 

This big house and furniture and the 
whole block of stores and the factory that 
father owns are surely worth ever so much 
all together. He could sell them all and 
pay these people, and of course he would ; 
you know he has always been so honorable.” 

“That is right; keep up your spirits,” 
said Sarah, briskly, all the time knowing 
that, as she expressed it to Michael, “ the 
bottom had just dropped out of the whole 
Barton estate.” 

When, the next day, the sun came out 
in full glory again and everything in and 
about the house went on as usual, Doris 
asked herself if she had not had an ugly 
dream. She avoided the streets for a few 


52 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


(lays ; but when she began again to see 
people, every one was friendly and no one 
alluded to her trouble. Little she guessed 
how sorry most of them felt for her, believ- 
ing that her father had fled like a coward, 
leaving her to be sold out of house and 
home and to provide for herself as best she 
could. She was as thoughtful as other girls 
similarly brought up, but in the days that 
followed her father’s disgrace it did not once 
come to her to ask where the money for the 
butcher and the baker was hereafter to be 
drawn. Fortunately, Sarah had stores of 
groceries and was a woman of resources and 
kind-heartedness. 

“ Wait, Michael, wait, and let the poor 
child down as easy as possible. I am sure 
her father will write soon,” she used to say. 

Almost a month had gone when one morn- 
ing Doris remembered the money given her 
for the piano and the sealed envelope which 
she had carefully laid away and forgotten. 
She hastened to get and open the letter. It 
contained several unfamiliar notes to the 
amount of four hundred dollars and a let- 
ter which read as follows : 


A GBIM REALITY. 


53 


“ Dear Doris : When you open this, you 
will understand in part why I left home. 
You must not judge of my past until I have 
talked with you. For the present you must 
trust no one, but keep your own counsel and 
act on my directions hereafter to be sent 
you. The sum here enclosed must be care- 
fully used as I will specify later. Add to it 
the money left ostensibly for the piano.” 

The letter was not signed and was a mys- 
tery to Doris, but she had not long to puzzle 
over it, for at noon there came for her 
another one, bearing a pale purple stamp 
and postmarked Edinburgh. She opened it 
with trembling fingers and read : 

“My Dear Child: I beg of you to 
follow to the very letter every direction 
herein contained. Tell Sarah, under condi- 
tions of secrecy, that you have heard from 
me, and that I cannot return. Say that I 
wish you to pay her and Michael their wages 
(I paid them in full to the time I left home) , 
and then that I want the house closed while 
you go to New York. Tell them nothing 
beyond that. Then take only such articles 
as are necessary or very dear to you ; pack 


54 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


ill one trunk. Buy your ticket to New 
York. Start so as to get into the city by 
daylight, and go for the night to No. — Six- 
teenth street. I have arranged with a friend 
to meet you there. He will buy your ticket 
to Glasgow on the steamer which brought 
me, and will provide for your comfort and 
safety. When you land at Glasgow, you 
will be met and told where to find me ; for 
very likely I shall have left Scotland. You 
have sufiicient money for all expenses. You 
must come to me, my dear child : I cannot 
provide for you in America. All I have 
there will be taken for debt, but in Europe 
I can do for you as ever. You must have 
suffered a great shock, but keep up your 
courage and tell no one your plans.’’ 

After this came more directions regard- 
ing her journey, and that was all. It was 
enough ; it revealed to her the simple truth 
that the wrong her father had done was ir- 
reparable. How they would live and where 
was all unknown, but one thing was certain : 
their past, so far as external circumstances 
went, was to have no connection with any- 
thing to come. Doris was for ever to shut 


A GRIM REALITY. 


55 


behind her the door of the bright old 
mansion that had become so dear to her — 
was to cross the ocean. She had planned 
only a few weeks ago to travel, but how 
unlike were her fancies to this secret flight ! 
And when she joined her father? How 
could she honor him in her heart if he 
were so false to his trusts? 

“I must not think of that,” she murmured ; 
‘‘ I hope he can prove to me that he did not 
mean to ruin all these people. Oh dear ! 
How Sarah will torture me with questions !” 

But, greatly to Doris’s surprise and relief, 
Sarah did not ask a question after Doris told 
her that the house was to be closed and that 
she was soon to start for New York. 

You will very likely make a long visit,” 
was her remark after musing a while, and 
so we will decide on things about the place, 
keeping that probability in mind.” 

Yes, I may be away a good while,” said 
Doris, uneasily. 

‘‘ When do you think of going ?” 

“ The first of next week.” 

“Very well,” sighed the faithful house- 
keeper, going out with a wistful glance at 


56 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


the young girl, who stood gazing at the letter 
in her hand with an attempt at composure 
which did not deceive Sarah in the least. 

More than once in the next three days 
Doris was compelled to believe that Sarah 
suspected she was going farther than New 
York. If not, why did she select the very 
articles that Doris would most wish to take 
away if she were not to return ? Why 
did she labor to get together all the little 
objects of value that had belonged to Doris’s 
mother, and to pack these for the young girl, 
who would have been obliged to do it secretly 
herself, there being no sufficient reason why 
she should convey them to New York ? 
Once, when Doris would have put her 
sealskin sacque in an inaccessible place, 
Sarah said. 

Don’t do that ; you will need it, per- 
haps, on the oce — Soon if the weather 
gets cold.” 

Doris looked up quickly and Sarah’s 
homely face grew crimson, but her voice 
was very soft as she steadily returned the 
look of surprise with one of sympathy and 
said, 


A GBIM REALITY. 


57 


‘‘Never mind my notions; you can de- 
pend on me.’’ 

“ You are very good to me, Miss Mears ; 
I shall not forget it.” 

“Why shouldn’t I be? I knew and loved 
your ma ; your pa has been very kind to me ; 
and, setting all that aside, hasn’t anybody in 
trouble got a claim on a Christian ?” 

“ Some Christians would not acknowledge 
that.” 

“They ain’t following their Master, then. 
There! that trunk holds about twice what 
you could have put in it. I do say that few 
folks can beat me in packing. And now, if 
you can spare me for just about three-quar- 
ters of an hour, I’d like, to have Michael take 
me out to the funeral.” 

“ Whose funeral, Sarah ?” 

“Amos Edson’s, John Edson’s father. I 
don’t know as I did tell you at the time of 
it; we were stirred up ourselves just then. 
He has been poorly a good while, and several 
weeks ago he had a shock of paralysis. They 
thought he’d get about, but he run down fast 
and died day before yesterday.” 

“ Has John got away to college ?” 


58 


AFTER THE FAILURE, 


‘‘ No ; he can’t — that is, he was, and is, at 
home.” 

“I am very sorry for them; John always 
seemed to have a peculiar reverence for his 
father. If you will wait, I might go with 
you, to show my respect. The Edsous can- 
not have a great many acquaintances ; they 
were superior to the common people around 
here and too poor to get into what is called 
society — at least, I have heard that said.” 

‘‘ It is exactly so, but you had better not 
trouble to go. They might never know you 
were there, and your hands are full,” said 
Sarah, who had her reasons for wishing to 
save Doris from learning too much of the 
Edsons’ affairs. — ‘‘ Let her go away think- 
ing that they have a roof over them and 
that John’s future is secure,” she said to 
herself. 

“Very well; I am tired and feel all the 
time as if I were doing things in a dream,” 
said the young girl, adding, “ Go and get 
ready, Sarah ; I do not need you any more 
this afternoon.” 

A few moments after, Doris saw Michael 
drive past the door with Miss Mears, their 


A GRIM REALITY. 


69 


going leaving her quite alone. With a sud- 
den impulse she rose and went about the 
house to take her last look. She was not 
going until the day after the morrow, but it 
would be easier now, especially as the Sep- 
tember sunshine was flooding the rooms with 
light and warmth. So, more than ever feel- 
ing as if she were dreaming, she went up to 
the old nursery, and, standing on the thresh- 
old, gazed at the relics of her childhood and 
the whims of her vacation-times. A glassy- 
eyed doll stared at her from the little willow 
chair standing by a battered playhouse. On 
the wall were the Rollo Books ’’ and all the 
once-treasured volumes of Little Women,” 
with Mrs. Whitney’s and Mrs. Stowe’s stories. 
In one corner was her studio, as she had 
grandly designated a paint-box, an easel 
and scores of charcoal sketches, with wild 
attempts at sunflowers, cat-tails, decorated 
china, plaques and studies ” as comical 
now as once they were inspiring to Doris, 
who, smiling tearfully, put the worst of 
them in the fireplace and set Are to them. 
Who would hereafter play with the old doll 
‘"Elizabeth”? Would the fantastic Chinese 


60 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


screen and the rusty scroll-saw be sold at 
auction? Shutting the nursery door, she 
went on through cheerful chambers always 
kept in readiness for the guests who would 
never again enjoy the Barton hospitality. 
She stood before the familiar pictures in 
the shaded parlor and ran her fingers over 
the keyboard before she closed the piano- 
lid. How clearly came before her the birth- 
day when this piano arrived ! Her mother 
had played ‘‘ Home, Sweet Home ’’ on it, and 
she, with a throng of children, listened only 
a little while and then rushed off to the lawn 
to croquet. Margaret Edson came to that 
party and wore such an ugly brown dress : 
that was the only time Doris remembered 
having seen her. She sank down among 
the cushions of a velvet sofa, and, forgetting 
to look back, began to wonder if she should 
be happy across the ocean and if there were 
those there who would become her friends. 
Would she live in a city or in some curious 
provincial town ? She was not so dull nor so 
unthinking that she did not understand her 
father’s perfidy and the disgrace on his name, 
but she was young and ignorant of all the 


A GEI3I REALITY. 


61 


details of his evil deeds. She still hoped 
that by leaving all behind him his creditors 
could be paid, and so there was something, 
after all, that stirred her imagination in 
the thought of going out to a new life in 
a — to her — new world. Hope and courage 
revived ; she was almost eager to be sailing 
away to the unknown. 

Doris was aroused by the ringing of the 
door-bell loudly, as by one who has failed to 
make himself heard by gentler movements. 
Hastening to the door, she exclaimed, as she 
ushered a gentleman into the hall, 

I forgot that I was alone in the house. 
Have you been waiting long?” 

Mr. Wickham did not reply, but followed 
Doris to the library. He was a small elderly 
man with gray whiskers and a brown wig — • 
a man for whom Mr. Barton had always 
had great respect. 

I am sorry not to have Miss Mears here. 
I — She has not gone to stay ?” 

Oh no ; it is time she were here now,” 
returned Doris. 

It was no new thing for Mr. Wickham to 
call; he had been to the house repeatedly 


62 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


since Mr. Barton went away, and had advised 
with Doris and Miss Mears. 

“ You received a letter from your father 
this week,’’ he said. ‘‘ I know, because his 
friend in New York has written to me of 
the plan proposed. You need not fear me. 
Miss Doris ; I was as much surprised as you 
were at the — your father’s troubles and his 
sudden going; but he knew he could rely 
on me to do my utmost for you. You could 
not be held for debt, so why should I have 
hesitated to help you get away?” 

“ Yes,” said Doris — thinking, I don’t see 
what there is for hhn to do, and he acts con- 
strained and queer, as if he thought so him- 
self.” 

‘‘ Oh, there comes Miss Mears ; please call 
her in soon. Miss Doris,” said the old man, 
who was uneasily moving from table to 
window, but who, apparently relieved by the 
sight of the housekeeper, began in a tone of 
more than usual kindness to talk of his wish 
to help Doris in any way now and later. 

Thanking Mr. Wickham as a matter of 
form, Doris summoned Sarah, who came 
complacently smoothing her dress, glad that 


A GRIM REALITY. 


63 


for once Mr. Wickham was to see her without 
her kitchen calico. But her black cashmere 
might have been sackcloth, for all heed he 
gave to it. His face suddenly grew darker 
and even more grave as, rising unconscious- 
ly, he said, 

‘‘ Doris, you have had trouble already ; 
can you nerve yourself to learn of more?” 

“What is it, Mr. Wickham? I can bear,” 
she cried, nervously, though forming no 
suspicion in that second of suspense. 

“Your poor father has been very ill since 
he landed in Scotland ; worry and excite- 
ment brought on a sort of brain fever. He 
was ill when he sent your letter, and — ” 

“He is worse now?” she broke out; for 
Mr. Wickham hesitated. 

“He grew worse rapidly, no doubt.” 

Doris seized the gentleman^s arm convul- 
sively and cried, 

“He is going to die! Is he?” 

“My dear child,” said Mr. Wickham, 
“he died last evening in Edinburgh, and 
word came by cable.” Then, gently forcing 
her back on the sofa, he waited for the pas- 
sion of grief that he dreaded to witness. 


64 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


Doris stared at him, speechless, with blank 
eyes and lips apart; then, tottering, she 
would have fainted but for their quick at- 
tention. Later, when Sarah, with tears 
running down her own cheeks, kept asking, 
“Are you better? Do you know me? Oh, 
do say something she only gave one long 
groan. She was too stunned to weep. 

Mr. Wickham lingered, trying with use- 
less kindness to say something comforting. 
He asked Sarah if there were no aunt or 
cousin who could come to Doris in this 
new crisis. His heart ached for the or- 
phan-girl, desolate in every sense. But 
Doris, sitting with face hidden in her hands 
trying to realize what had befallen her, 
heard nothing beyond his telling Sarah that' 
a letter from the person sending the cable- 
message would probably be received in about 
ten days. 

After Mr. Wickham went away the house- 
keeper hovered around Doris, trying by 
every evidence of sympathy to make her 
talk, or even to weep, and relaxed her efforts 
only when Doris cried out, “ Oh, Sarah, you 
are good, but let me alone or I shall die ! I 


A GRIM REALITY. 


65 


can’t think. It is so horrible from begin- 
ning to end ! Poor father ! how he must 
have suffered in mind and in body !” and at 
that she broke into sobs and cried until she 
was exhausted. Sarah soothed and nursed 
her, brought her tea and persuaded her to 
swallow it, giving her no chance to feel — at 
least, in those first hours — that she was all 
alone. That chilling realization was to 
come after the first force of the blow had 
ceased to stun poor Doris Barton — Doris, 
who so lately had been jesting that her life 
was an affair of “ pink cotton, sunshine and 
easy-going comfort.” In the very morning 
of her life she found herself confronted by 
the three worst realities that ever crush 
unaided human nature — sin, death and pov- 
erty. 


5 


CHAPTER IV. 

“ WHAT CAN SHE DOr 

“ We hear the arrows in the dark go by : 

The cowering soul no longer soars or sings, 

Or it might know God’s presence then most nigh, 

Our darkness being the shadow of his wings.” 

Gerald Massey. 

M r. WICKHAM, together with certain 
business associates of Mr. Barton, had 
been looking over papers all the afternoon. 
Just before dark the other gentlemen went 
away, but he stayed for the few cheerful 
words which he never neglected to give 
Doris. 

After the first shock of her father’s death 
the young girl had failed to show that anxiety 
about her own future which Miss Mears daily 
expected her to express. The very next day 
she unpacked her trunk in a mechanical way, 
replacing articles in drawers and closets pre- 
cisely as if she were to remain in the old 
home for an indefinite length of time. After 
66 


WHAT CAN SHE DOf’ 


67 


that she took, apparently, no thought of any- 
thing further concerning household matters, 
but spent hours in silent meditation, the pur- 
port of which Sarah could not divine. 

At the earliest date possible information 
came respecting Mr. Barton’s death, which 
had occurred at the hotel whence he had 
written Doris. He had been very ill, but 
was fully conscious for hours before dying 
and realized that the end had come. He 
professed deep regret for the part which he 
had played, and, while he admitted that ten 
or fifteen thousand dollars which he had then 
with him was by right not his own, but his 
creditors’, he begged that they would deal 
more mercifully with his forsaken child than 
he had dealt with them and their children. 
He gave information about several points 
not previously cleared up; then, directing 
that his body should be buried that side the 
ocean, he prayed God to have mercy on his 
soul, and died among strangers. 

Mr. Wickham had received the letters, 
and, suppressing some parts and softening 
others, had read them to Doris, who, mourn- 
fully shaking her head, exclaimed. 


68 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


“ It must all be true, of course ; but if I 
were this moment to see father coming up 
the walk into the house, I could believe it 
all to be a dreadful delusion of some kind.’’ 

On the afternoon mentioned Sarah Mears 
lay in wait for Mr. Wickham and captured 
him as he passed by the dining-room door. 

‘‘ I want to speak to you,” she whispered. 
‘‘ Michael says the hay and the oats are all 
gone, and he asks who owns the horses and 
when the money for keeping of ’em is to be 
forthcoming, and, while he wouldn’t hurt 
Miss Doris’s feelings by asking such a 
question, he supposes wages are a thing of 
the past.” 

“Tell Mick not to worry; things are being 
settled as fast as possible. The horses will 
be removed to-morrow, and he can look to 
me to recommend him anywhere if he finds 
a new place. You are — ” 

“ I am all right. I sha’n’t spend nor waste 
nor use anybody’s substance, but any work 
Or worry that can be so ordered must fall on 
me. What is the latest outlook ? Doris will 
surely rouse up some day aud want to know,” 
asked Sarah, offering Mr. Wickham a chair. 


WHAT CAN SHE DOr 


69 


Tlie gentleman slid into it slowly, gazing 
about the handsome room with the tall side- 
board covered with glittering glass and sil- 
ver, the dancing firelight gleaming on the 
crimson curtains. 

“ It is bad enough, but not so bad as I 
feared. This house and more than half its 
contents, with every other bit of property 
Barton owned, must go to help pay his 
debts.’^ 

‘‘Then, for pity’s sake, what will Doris 
have to live on?” 

“Well, fortunately, her mother had a little 
something, and that was secured to Doris be- 
fore Mrs. Barton died. You know that old- 
fashioned stone house on the road toward the 
hills, at the west end of the village ?” 

“ The one with a Grecian porch, as they 
used to call them tall pillars, and the big 
front yard where the neighbors’ cows pas- 
ture themselves ?” 

“Yes; that is the house,” returned Mr. 
Wickham, “and Doris’s mother owned it 
when she was married, and it never was 
sold. Barton used to say it was too big 
for any one poor family to rent and too 


70 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


run down for well-to-do ones. He said he 
would fix it up and advise Doris to sell it 
when she came of age. Well, that she owns 
now, but it isn’t very valuable. Then a con- 
siderable amount of substantial old furniture 
in this house was Mrs. Barton’s, and a little 
well-invested money that will bring Doris in 
from one hundred and seventy-five to two 
hundred dollars a year; that is all. Six 
months ago I should have said that Barton’s 
death would have secured to his daughter 
about one hundred thousand.” 

‘‘‘Two hundred dollars’!” mused Miss 
Mears. “ That will have to clothe her, 
though she has paid fifty dollars apiece for 
three dresses since she came home in June, 
and I would not attempt to tell how much 
more for gloves and fol-de-rols ; but she can 
learn economy as well as other folks. Then 
there is this old rookery of a house. She 
might . mo ve her mother’s chairs and tables 
down among the rats and cobwebs, but what 
would she eat and drink ? If the cows fed 
all winter on the grounds, she might steal 
the milk ; but that isn’t really feasible.” 

Mr. Wickham felt the sincerely-expressed 


WHAT CAN SHE DOr 


71 


interest behind Sarah’s gruff manner, and 
returned : 

‘‘ I have turned the thing over and over 
in my mind, and I am perplexed. Doris 
has some money that her father gave her ; 
she offered to turn it over to the bank, but 
this is not to be done. She will get every- 
thing due her, for almost every one is sorry 
for the girl. She could stay here until this 
house is sold, but what would she live on 
later if she spends the little she has for a 
few months in this big house with fire, lights 
and necessary expenses? If she could go 
away and teach, now, she might have the 
old stone house put in order and rent it. 
Have you had any talk with her on what 
she is to do?” 

“ No ; I am waiting for her to ask and for 
you to advise.” 

‘‘If I were not an old bachelor — ‘not 
living, but only boarding,’ as somebody says 
— I probably would have a home and a 
family of my own, and my wife could take 
her in and plan for her; or if she were a 
boy or — ” 

“ Or if she was not poor, she would not 


72 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


need help or counsel/^ snapped Sarah, who 
reflected that a man willing to wear such a 
remarkable wig ought to have uncommon 
intelligence under it, whereas Mr. Wickham 
seemed as ‘‘put to it’’ as she was herself, 
and she “ nothing but a woman.” 

“ She couldn’t teach, now, could she ? 
Does she know any one thing well enough ?” 
asked the dried-up little man, meekly dis- 
regarding Sarah’s attempt at sarcasm. 

“She painted those nasturtions on that 
china plaque over there by the mantelpiece, 
and folks have admired it; she calls it ‘a 
decorative bit of color.’ There is a fashion 
about such things, you. know,” remarked 
Miss Mears, just a trifle glad to let Mr. 
Wickham see that she knew “ what was 
what.” 

“Humph! Nasturtions, are they? I 
would take them for bits of red and yellow 
flannel, very pretty, very pretty, but there 
would be no market for those, because folks 
around here, you see, are more exercised 
about getting something to put on their 
dinner-plates than they are about screwing 
them empty onto the sides of the room and 


WHAT CAN SHE HOP 


73 


spoiling the plastering at that. Very pretty, 
’ndeed !” 

As a matter of fact, Mr. Wickham said 
putty, and he said it so ironically that Sarah 
felt depressed ; but she ventured to add, 

‘‘ She makes lovely drawn-work.” 

Drawn-work ! pencil — charcoal ! About 
the same thing, no doubt;” and he nodded 
at the vivid nasturtions. 

No, hemstitch — the cunningest little 
fringed things to put under finger-bowls, 
with flowers outlined in colors.” 

Mr. Wickham had vague ideas of all sorts 
of stitches except such irregular ones as he 
was at times forced to put into his neglected 
hose, but he remarked, 

“ Sewing is drudgery for such a girl, and 
dressmaking must be learned. Could she 
teach arithmetic and spelling.” 

“ She graduated with the highest honors 
from — Somewhere or other; I will show 
you in a minute,” said Sarah, retiring to the 
library, from which she returned with a 
parchment roll. 

Mr. Wickham adjusted his spectacles and 
took the roll to the window for examination. 


74 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


“ Sounds well/’ he muttered ; ‘‘ says Doris 
Egbert Barton has mastered mathematics 
and languages and philosophy and art — has 
taken in more than the Seven Wise Men of 
Greece ever dreamed of learning — and all 
the while her deportment has been most 
exemplary. It says all that in Latin, too, 
made doubly solemn with a red seal and a 
blue satin streamer. I do declare ! they 
conferred a degree on her besides! Well, 
I give it up. I wonder, now, if she could 
teach the first department in our grammar- 
school? It would give her ten dollars a 
week ; but Nora Wells lost the chance, 
though she had one of these pretty little 
documents. She lost it on this very word 
by the way she spelled it — docerment. And 
then in geography she scattered the Western 
Territories around with the reckless impar- 
tiality of a cyclone. The trustees were 
sorry, but they couldn’t give her the po- 
sition.” 

‘‘ Well, I don’t suppose that Doris has ever 
expected to teach,” expostulated Miss Mears. 

‘‘Of course not, and I wish such putty 
creatures never need have to do anything but 


WHAT CAN SHE HOP 


75 


'putty work. Doris was a sweet little thing 
with her flowers and her flnery, her pony 
and her pleasures. The trouble, Miss Hears, 
is that, while all these come by means of 
money, the money is not made by means of 
these pretty things. She seems a sensible 
girl,’’ he added, in another tone, “ but she is 
so silent since I broke all the bad news to 
her that I can’t tell much about her. Have 
you asked her about her relatives ?” 

She has none near enough to be of any 
use to her.” 

Well, I must be going now, but before 
long I will come again and see Doris. I 
have not wanted to worry her about her 
bread and butter before her tears were dry 
and, so saying, Mr. Wickham grasped his 
knotty old cane and departed. 

Doris Barton during those days of com- 
parative silence had not been giving way to 
mere despondency ; she had thought more 
than she had done in all her life before. 
Her grief at the loss of her father was very 
real, but it was not the intense sorrow it 
might have been if her life had ever been a 
part of his. She felt guilty that she did not 


76 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


miss him with an overwhelming sense of 
desolation. Deeper than her personal sorrow 
was the pain of knowing him to have been 
less than the upright, unblemished character 
she had all her life respected. She found 
excuses for him and tried not to let her 
thoughts dwell with unavailing regret on 
this element of her affliction. She began to 
have a far clearer idea of her own position 
than either Mr. Wickham or Sarah supposed, 
and, while she valued their advice and trusted 
their experience, she had no intention of 
passively waiting for them to settle her 
plans. 

Just after Mr. Wickham had gone Doris 
came into the dining-room, exclaiming cheer- 
fully, 

“ How bright the fire makes a place these 
first cool evenings! If I can afford it, I will 
always have a grate in my room. Michael 
says wood is not dear about here.’’ 

‘‘ No, not very dear,” assented Sarah ; 
thinking, Does the poor girl fancy we can 
keep Michael right along and stay here ?” 

Doris talked of various things until after 
supper ; then she began : 


WHAT CAN SHE DOT’ 


77 


I want to have a long talk with you be- 
fore I see Mr. Wickham again. I must find 
out what is best for me to do.’’ 

Exactly so,” said Sarah, promptly. 

‘‘ What are you going to do when you 
leave me ? How I wish we were to go on ! 
but of course I know that is out of the ques- 
tion,” sighed Doris. 

‘‘Well, I don’t know. Housekeepers ain’t 
in demand around here. I don’t go into no- 
body’s kitchen just like a regular Irish hired- 
girl. My brother Isaac, down Somerset way, 
would be glad to have me come there, but 
this living with relations has drawbacks. 
You put in a good deal more than you get 
out sometimes ; and when your means and 
your strength has all gone, likely as not you 
are told you have been living on ’em all your 
days. I’d like to get a place as matron or 
head of some institution. There isn’t a 
blessed thing about housekeeping or mar- 
keting or general managing that I ain’t 
lip to, if I do say it.” 

“I know that must be so,” said Doris, “and 
in thinking it all over I have had an idea. 
Now, I want to tell you something that seems 


78 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


to me might be done and be good for both of 
us. But maybe you will see at once some 
objection. Perhaps the advantage would 
be all on my side, but I can’t tell.” 

“Do let me know right off,” put in Sarah, 
curiously. 

“ Well, you know my old stone house ?” 

“ Yes.” • 

“ I walked down there to-day and looked 
at it. It is not far from the business part of 
the town, and the neighborhood is rather 
good. If the underbrush were cut away 
and the grounds were cared for, there would 
be a nice lawn. Inside it looks no worse 
than any neglected place that wants paint, 
paper, whitewash and repairing in general, 
for the house was never let as a tenement 
nor really abused.” 

“ I know it.” 

“Well, it occurred to me that the money 
I have on hand would put the house in good 
order. I have spent scarcely anything, you 
know — only a trifle for crape — because you 
showed me how to get such economical 
mourning and to use so many things I had. 
You say we are living on what we had laid 


WHAT CAN SHE DOr 


79 


by in the house, so, as I say, why could not 
that house be put in order?’’ 

‘‘And then rented ? I suppose it might, 
but the thing is that few people here want to 
rent such a large place. The people in the 
town who don’t live in their own houses 
board or rent little places and parts of 
houses.” 

“ I know that, and my plan goes on that 
supposition. Now, if that house were made 
really pretty and attractive, there is fur- 
niture enough in this house belonging to 
me from my mother, as Mr. Wickham has 
found out, to furnish two-thirds of that stone 
house. Don’t you think so ?” 

“ Yes, if much of that solid old furniture 
up stairs is what you mean,” answered Sarah. 

Doris laughed a little nervously as she 
went on : 

“ Now, I have got to the thing that may 
astonish you, Sarah, but I can’t see why it 
is not sensible. Do you think the rent of 
that house, nearly furnished as it would 
be, could be taken as an equivalent for my 
board?” 

“Yes; I think it ought to be a full equiva- 


80 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


lent, if you could get the right sort of people 
in the house ; but that is the hard thing, as I 
told you/' 

Because people here prefer to board, as you 
said. Are there any nice boarding-houses ?" 
' No, not what I call nice. There is Miss 
Kelley’s : she puts on a great deal of style, 
but she buys poor meat and the table-linen 
is dreadful. She doesn’t mind that if she 
has a black man in a white apron. There 
is Mrs. Parker, wdio is a good Christian, 
but she is so tormented by her drunken 
husband that she can’t keep her house up 
to the mark, either.” 

Well, Miss Mears, what if you were to 
take the repaired stone house and open a 
boarding-house, having rent for my board ? 
Everybody in town knows you and how 
capable you are. I believe you could count 
on Mr. Wickham for one boarder if you made 
muffins often. I don’t see why you could not 
be independent and prosper, while I had a 
home among friends. I could help you in 
many ways and make your interests mine, 
just as you have been making mine yours. 
I appreciate your kindness in these last 


WHAT CAN SHE HOr 


81 


weeks. That would give me a chance to 
fit myself for teaching or getting something 
to do in the future, and the little interest- 
money from what mother left would pay 
all my extra expenses.” 

Doris paused with sparkling eyes and 
flushed cheeks, gazing intently at Miss 
Hears, who, thoroughly surprised, was yet 
rapidly gaining enthusiasm. The idea struck 
her as agreeable and, for aught she could then 
see, as sensible : 

“ My stars, Doris ! To think of your fig- 
gering all that out, while I was feeling as if 
we had run up against a stone wall ! We’ll 
set the whole thing before Mr. Wickham. I 
would go into it in a minute if he encouraged 
me.” 

From that they went eagerly to discussing 
details, and talked until the clock struck 
eleven. The following day they were so 
eager to get Mr. Wickham’s opinion that 
they sent for him to come up to lunch. 
Sarah, who knew his weaknesses, put him 
in excellent humor by serving his favorite 
apple-fritters, and the presence of Doris was 
not, as of late it had been, a restraint, for 


82 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


she was as alert and self-possessed as ever 
she had been, perfectly cheerful if graver 
than formerly, and unconsciously carrying 
herself with a new and gentle dignity. She 
had matured rapidly under the forcing pro- 
cess of the last weeks. 

Mr. Wickham, thinking it a good chance 
to find if Doris could teach school, began to 
question her a little. Detecting his motive, 
she said, 

“ I wish that I felt capable of doing some- 
thing well enough to support myself. I do 
not now, but I mean to fit myself for it.” 

Mr. Wickham’s face fell so perceptibly 
that Doris could not but smile as she said, 

“We have another idea — Sarah and I — 
about which we want your opinion and 
then she told him. 

He was impressed, but was too cautious to 
give hasty approval. 

“ There is no doubt,” said he, nodding his 
head at regular intervals — “no doubt but 
that two or three hundred dollars would put 
that place in first-rate order. It is a pleas- 
ant house, cheerful and sunny, or it would 
be so after the trees were trimmed and the 


WHAT CAN SHE DOr 


83 


vines and bushes cleared out. The only 
point is, could you secure boarders enough 
to pay your expenses? I think that you 
might. Any way, we will give the plan 
careful thought.’’ 

It is a lovely day ; could you spare time 
to walk down there with us after lunch?” 
asked Doris, eagerly. 

Glad to see the color in her cheeks, he 
readily agreed, and half an hour later they 
were walking down the village streets, rust- 
ling through the fallen leaves which covered 
the ground like a red and golden carpet. 
The sky over the tree-tops was a soft, ex- 
quisite azure and the air was as balmy as in 
June. Doris felt a returning vigor and en- 
joyment of her young life. There was noth- 
ing morbid about her ; and when the sicken- 
ing thought of her father’s dishonor returned, 
she strove to remember that his guilt was not 
hers. She had wronged no one. 

Here we are,” said Mr. Wickham, stop- 
ping on a corner. “Now, if this broken 
fence was taken away, the grass cut, that 
great fruit tree felled and light let on the 
house, it shows a good substantial building.” 


84 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


“Yes; I always liked that broad piazza/’ 
said Doris. “ I remember once coming here 
by moonlight with mother, and we sat there 
while she rested and told stories.” 

They walked up a long gravel-walk to the 
front door and entered a wide hall running 
directly through the house and having large, 
cheerful rooms on each side. 

“ One such big parlor is enough,” ex- 
claimed Sarah ; “ the other could be let to 
some good-paying boarder who wanted to 
be on the first floor. Then there is this big 
dining-room, with plenty of closets and so 
easy of access. Why, it was a shame to let 
such a house stand empty so long !” 

“Yes, and the upper rooms are very 
pleasant,” said Doris, tripping up the broad 
stairs. “There are some large rooms with 
deep cozy window-seats and some cunning 
little hall-bedrooms. There is one room 
with an alcove that I always liked ; the 
windows look toward the hills.” 

“ Then you can have that for your room,” 
laughed Sarah, pufiing after her rapid hurry- 
ing up stairs. 

Doris was getting more and more excited, 


WHAT CAN SHE DOr 


85 


and went darting here and there, constantly 
making interesting discoveries. 

I think that if this house was once fur- 
nished and made inviting I should feel a 
great deal richer than I have ever felt in 
my life before, for I never before thought 
of saying, ‘ This is my house.’ ” 

But, my dear child, you must remember 
that a house is to you what a shell is to an 
oyster, if I may be allowed the not-flatter- 
ing comparison ; but you can’t eat or drink 
a house, and the oyster has really the ad- 
vantage, for he pays no taxes or insurance.” 

True, Mr. Wickham, but the public 
eventually eats the poor oyster, and here the 
advantage is mine, for Sarah and I plan not 
exactly to eat the public, but to make them 
the food-providers.” 

You will do ! Miss Doris, you have the 
real spirit of the boarding-house keeper. 
I am glad Miss Mears is to be cook; she 
may be less hard-hearted and worldly-wise,” 
returned the dried-up little man, delighted 
at Doris’s good spirits. 

Before they went home Mr. Wickham 
had found their enthusiasm contagious, and 


86 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


after making the circuit of the rooms he 
came out with them into the piazza, where, 
screened from the street by the foliage, they 
sat down to make estimates and more elab- 
orate calculations. 

“ If workmen were set at it at opce, I 
believe the place could be in good condition 
by Christmas. You can, I am sure, stay 
where you are until that time, and mean- 
time we must do our best. Miss Mears and I, 
to secure boarders. I shall come and bring 
my nephew, who is now in the office with 
me. We each pay seven dollars a week 
where we are, and everything is flavored 
with bacon-fat. I declare if it is not five 
o’clock !” exclaimed Mr. Wickham, seizing 
his knotty cane and fairly driving the 
women off the premises. 

He left them at the gate. Miss Mears, 
who had an errand in another direction, 
parted from Doris a moment later, and she, 
seeing that there was a lovely sunset, went 
very leisurely home, continually stopping to 
pick up some bright-tinted leaf. The load 
that had weighed her down seemed lifted 
off*, her eyes were bright and her cheeks 


WHAT CAN SHE DOr 


87 


pink-tinted. Very pretty and by no means 
crushed she looked to a second young girl 
who was about to pass her, having walked 
behind Doris for a considerable distance. 
She too was deeply in black, of a coarse 
quality, and her face as she passed Doris 
reminded the latter of some one she had 
known. 

‘‘It must be John Edson’s sister,’’ was the 
quick reflection. “It is, I am sure;” and, 
acting on a sudden impulse, Doris stepped 
faster, until, overtaking Margaret, she laid 
her hand lightly on her arm, saying, 

“ Did I not know you when we were little 
girls?” 

Even in that instant Margaret noted the 
dainty kid glove so near her shabby cotton 
one, and was unjust enough to think, “ What 
right has she now to gloves like that?” as 
if Doris were defrauding her by wearing 
out valueless things long before paid for. 

“Miss Barton, I believe?” said Margaret, 
stifldy ; but Doris, thinking compassionately 
of the rings under her eyes, said, 

“ Yes, and I am so sorry for you ! The 
same trouble has come to us both.” 


88 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


She meant the death of a father, but 
Margaret, who scornfully considered Mr. 
Barton’s death as of no account, chose to 
think she meant some allusion to the bank, 
and coldly answered, 

‘‘ I suppose we shall not starve, and I 
presume that you are not going to be very 
much inconvenienced.” 

The sarcasm was wholly lost on Doris, 
who was only perplexed by the other’s tone ; 
grief she would have understood, but she 
knew no reason for Margaret’s bitterness : 

I was thinking of the loss your father 
must be to you. I have such a pleasant 
impression of his life from the few things 
that your brother has told me of him.” 

“ He was a man whose memory every one 
can respect,” returned Margaret, looking 
straight toward the sunset, but seeing not 
that nor the flush on Doris’s cheeks. 

‘‘ Perhaps she meant nothing ; she is un- 
happy and awkward,” said Doris, to herself, 
resisting the temptation to leave Margaret 
at once. She herself was, of course, aware 
that every one knew of her father’s disgrace 
and death, but she had been very sorry for 


WHAT CAN SHE DOr 


89 


those — to her unknown — persons who had 
lost by him, and, poor girl ! she never 
dreamed that they could feel anything but 
sorry in their turn for her. Even Miss 
Mears did not know that there were people 
who spread far and wide the report that 
Doris would never be any poorer for her 
father^s downfall. Was she not still living 
in luxury ? This talk of her having a 
little left her by her mother was, they in- 
sinuated, a mere blind. Somewhere and 
somehow plenty of money had been secured 
to her — money that belonged to widows and 
orphans, to this other girl, Margaret Edson, 
for ins^nce. 

Has your brother John gone to college 
yet ?” asked Doris. 

She started with surprise when Margaret 
turned on her fiercely, demanding. 

How do you think he can go to col- 
lege?’’ 

Doris, aroused by her rudeness, answered 
with girlish dignity : 

‘^He himself gave me to understand that 
the way was open and that he intended to 
go.” 


90 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


it was, Miss Barton. The money 
which my poor father had toiled years to 
lay by was earned at last, and John was 
ready to have his first chance in the world, 
and mother and I thought that we had over 
our heads a roof that could be paid for once 
for all. What happened ? Your father's 
bank failed, and my poor father learned 
that every cent he had earned by the sweat 
of his brow was wickedly stolen and lost to 
him, that his family must lose the old home 
and go out beggars or starve, that John 
must give up college and begin work with 
ditch-diggers. The knowledge of that killed 
my father, and his death lies at somebody's 
door. I don't wish to be hard, but the truth 
is hard. It is crushing mother, and it galls 
me. I can't help it if other people find it 
hard to bear. Bearing it is worse than hear- 
ing it, I can assure you and, drawing her 
old shawl about her tall form, Margaret 
hastened on, utterly indifferent to the effect 
she had produced. 

The gay leaves dropped from Doris's 
grasp and blinding tears filled her eyes. 
Margaret Edson had been very cruel ; she 


WHAT CAN SHE DOf” 


91 


had meant to be so, and Doris felt her in- 
tention behind her every utterance. 

I never harmed her ; why should she 
hate me ? She might remember that I have 
lost my father and my property too, and 
there are bitter things which I have to 
endure that she need not feel. Every one 
speaks kindly of her father. Poor John ! 
I am so sorry for him ! This is a dreadful 
blow to him. Oh dear ! I never knew there 
could be such trouble in life.’’ 

Miss Hears was surprised to see the sad 
face with which Doris sat down to her sup- 
per an hour later, and she worried for fear 
that she was ill or overtired, until Doris told 
her of meeting Margaret Edson and of learn- 
ing how much the Edsons had suffered. She 
did not tell her how roughly the news had been 
imparted, but the fact of its having been dis- 
closed accounted sufficiently for her depres- 
sion, and, as she did not care to talk much, 
Sarah could only try to cheer her by extra 
attention to her comfort. Doris retired to her 
own room not long after, and sat listlessly 
down by her desk. The excitement of the 
afternoon had lessened, and she was tired 


92 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


physically and mentally. She fell to won- 
dering how she should construct her future 
interests and occupations in conformity to 
her circumstances. 

“ I suppose everything will begin to be 
different now. All the plans I had for en- 
joyment involved money, and now I must 
save until I can make something. It will 
get to be a narrow sort of thing, this just 
making out to live. I can’t be generous 
any more and give nice presents. I wonder 
if all these things would have happened if 
my mother had lived? She might have kept 
father back from speculations. She was such 
a good woman.” 

Idly taking up a little book from the table, 
Doris looked at the cover. It was a gift to 
her only a year before her mother died, and 
on the fly-leaf was written, ‘‘Whatsoever ye 
do, do it heartily as to the Lord, and not unto 
men.” 

“ Yes, she was very good. I suppose, now, 
that verse meant something to my mother. 
Whatsoever I do — that, for instance, is my 
leaving this house and getting started over 
in the old stone one and then looking for 


WHAT CAN SHE DOr 


93 


some work — Mo it unto the Lord/ I do 
such things unto myself, but probably that 
is because I am not much of a Christian. 
There is a great difference in Christians.” 

There was a tap on the door, and Miss 
Hears put in her head to ask a question. 
Doris answered it, and then asked in her 
straightforward fashion, 

‘‘What makes the difference in Christians, 
Miss Hears? Is Margaret Edson a Christian, 
do you think ?” 

“ I don’t know about her,” returned Sarah, 
dropping into a chair just inside the door and 
repeating the words : “ ‘ What makes the dif- 
ference?’ Well, I calculate that it is some- 
thing like this : One sort of Christians want 
to be ready to die. They are afraid of per- 
dition, and willin’, too, to be real respectable 
beforehand ; and religion is respectable. The 
other sort get ready to live. Dying grace 
will satisfy lots of folks, but living grace 
makes Christians that amount to something 
in being and in doing.” 

“ What do you mean by that ?” 

“ Oh, one sort of a Christian doesn’t ex- 
pect to be made much better than he is 


94 


AFTER THE FAILURE, 


naturally. If lie does not lie or steal, goes 
to church, puts loose change in the contribu- 
tion-box and reads the Bible when he thinks 
of it, he feels as if nothing dreadful ought 
to happen to him, and that if there were 
any danger that he could actually foresee, 
why then he might pray more. The other 
kind of Christian thinks of what Christ’s life 
was like and of what he said. You know 
the Bible teaches that when the Lord left 
the earth he promised his Holy Spirit to 
any one who would ask in faith, and this 
Spirit no sooner comes to any one who 
has prayed than that one gets better and 
stronger and wiser. He or she wants to 
read the Bible, likes to pray and begins to 
help other people.’^ 

“Like ministers and missionaries,” said 
Doris. 

“ Yes, but plenty of common people live 
that way. I myself don’t half live up to 
what I believe, but I ask the Spirit of God 
to teach me how to keep house well, and to 
fill my heart with gratitude, and to open my 
eyes to see other people’s needs. He does 
it, only I am so stupid and sluggish I don’t 


WHAT CAN SHE DOr 


95 


half avail myself of this grace that he 
would give me/’ 

“ Of course I have heard no end of ser- 
mons on such things, but they seemed met- 
aphysical. I was thinking when you came 
to the door of this verse that my mother 
wrote in a book and Doris read the words 
to her, adding, I don’t see any really 
sensible way that common things like mov- 
ing furniture, getting boarders, and all that, 
could be mixed up with religion.” 

Maybe not. Just to try it yourself 
would make you sort of unnaturally pious 
or sanctimonious, but to get a sense of the 
love of Christ into your heart is easier; and 
then that gets easily into anything and 
everything else — without effort, almost.” 

‘‘I don’t see how,” said Doris, ‘^but I 
would like to know.” 

“ Well, if you will take the New Testa- 
ment and study it, say, one month in this 
way, you will find out : Make a little blank- 
book and divide each page in two; in one 
column put verses that tell what a Christian 
is expected to be; right across put the 
promise of God to make him that, whatever 


96 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


it is; and if at the same time you pray to 
understand, why I reckon you will find out 
what makes the difference in Christians and 
why some cheat themselves all their lives 
and never realize it/’ 

Doris looked up at the plain woman 
whom she had formerly regarded as mere- 
ly an upper servant, but on whom she had 
lately leaned for comfort and advice. She 
confessed then somewhat timidly, 

I thought of that ; I mean I was think- 
ing that my being a Christian did not do 
much for me or for any one else. It is not 
exactly right.” 

‘‘ No, it is wrong, and the Spirit of God 
is no doubt telling you by just those 
thoughts.” 

Doris looked startled for a moment ; and 
when Sarah had gone, she began to be 
troubled at her own spiritual ignorance and 
personal unworthiness. She was poor and 
lonely and good for nothing. Getting her 
Bible, she opened at a book-mark and read 
only three verses, but some way they were 
like a warmth and glow let on to one who 
was cold and bewildered. She could not 


WHAT CAN SHE DOf’ 


97 


tell why they cheered her, yet she was not 
half so sad after reading : 

‘‘ I will pray the Father, and he shall 
give you another Comforter, that he may 
abide with you for ever, even the Spirit 
of truth, whom the world cannot receive, 
because it seeth him not, neither knoweth 
him : but ye know him, for he dwelleth 
with you and shall be in you. I will not 
leave you comfortless, I will come to you.’’ 

Before Doris went to bed she made her 
little book and laid it by her Bible. 

1 


CHAPTER V. 


THE NEW HOME. 

“ Soberly and with clear eyes believe in your own time and 
place. There is not, and there never has been, a better time or 
a better place to live in. Only with this belief can you believe 
in hope and believe in work.” — Rev. Phillips Brooks, D.D. 

T he next two montlis were full of bus- 
tle and excitement for Doris and Sarah. 
Workmen were put immediately at work on 
the stone house, and every day the two must 
go over to decide on the tint of a wall-paper 
or the width of a shelf Then, Miss Hears, 
who had laid up a little from her past earn- 
ings, was investing this in the most approved 
kitchen-appointments — a range that would 
almost cook a dinner without a cook; she 
was getting new pots and pans and labor- 
saving inventions. 

Meanwhile, the village was interested in 
discussing the new boarding-house. Mr. 
Wickham was shrewd enough to know how 
best to advertise its advantages. He did not 

98 


THE NEW HOME. 


99 


mention Doris’s name in connection with it, 
but dwelt on Miss Mears’s capabilities as a 
housekeeper. Some one started a story that 
the latter had quite a little property laid up, 
and now intended to own a house and take a 

few very select boarders only.” Before the 
house was ready ten persons had engaged 
board, and Miss Mears had little anxiety 
about the future. 

The second week in December the moving 
took place, and Sarah was such an excellent 
manager that Doris positively enjoyed the 
process. First everything belonging to the 
cheerful, bright kitchen and dining-room 
was put in working-order, and then they 
took the other rooms. By careful manage- 
ment, Mr. Wickham, without incurring any 
debt, not only had paid for all the house-re- 
pairs, but had added to the insufficient fur- 
niture ; so that the pleasant parlor was now 
attractively fitted up. 

One bleak December afternoon the ‘‘last 
tack,” as Sarah declared, was “driven.” Mr. 
Wickham and his nephew were to arrive that 
night, and the rest within the next ten days. 

“ I am in a hurry for Mr. Wickham to 


100 


AFTER THE FATLURE. 


come/’ exclaimed Doris. “Six months ago 
I would not have believed that I could have 
liked him as I do like him. Father used to 
say that he was an excellent man, and would 
often tell how he had known him ever since 
they were boys; but I never saw anything in 
him beyond that wig, which looks twenty 
years younger than his whiskers.” 

“ Yes, the poor old gentleman says he 
feels as if at last he were going to have a 
home. He says if I will fill his match-box 
regularly, let his pipes alone and keep on 
cooking like a Christian he will be a per- 
petual boarder,” returned Sarah, straighten- 
ing a picture. 

“ There he comes ! How I want to hear 
what he says ! You know he has not been 
in since we settled these rooms ;” and Doris 
ran to open the front door, exclaiming as she 
did so, “ First scene, first act. Curtain rises. 
Enter first boarder.” 

“ Verily so !” laughed Mr. Wickham, stag- 
gering under a load of valuables which he 
would not trust to any baggage-man, “and 
better than any flourish of trumpets or 
brass-band music is the view before him.” 


THE NEW HOME. 


101 


He dropped his burden inside the door and 
gazed about admiringly, rubbing his thin 
hands in approval. ‘‘ I do like a wide, light 
hall like this, with a warm carpet and a visi- 
ble fire and that big hospitable sofa — made 
fifty years ago. I’ll warrant you. Most houses 
nowadays in country villages have a front 
hall like a draughty stovepipe, black and 
cold and empty of everything but odors.” 

Delighted with the old gentleman’s en- 
thusiasm, Doris hurried him through the 
parlor into the second room, smaller, and 
even cozier, fitted up with bookcases, writ- 
ing-desk and sewing-table and having a 
deep window full of house-plants and lux- 
uriant ferns. Nothing could have looked 
more homelike than this verdure between 
the parted crimson curtains, for outside a 
storm of hail and sleet was pelting on the 
window-panes. Then up stairs they went 
and introduced Mr. Wickham to his own 
sanctum, to which he had previously sent 
his furniture. But Doris had added a dozen 
articles of use and comfort, and in one case 
had given him what he called a ‘‘perfect 
treasure.” It was an ancient combination 


102 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


writing-desk and bookcase full of pigeon- 
holes and drawers big and little. 

‘‘That belonged to my mother’s father,” 
said Doris; “I thought you might like it. 
The rest of the oldest things I have taken 
myself. Sarah has really made me think 
them pretty, and so I have left all the 
modern things for the boarders.” 

“Yes, Doris laughs about furnishing her 
room from the garret, but I think some 
boarder will be really jealous of her things,” 
said Sarah. 

“ Whenever I read of the Renaissance 
period in art, I shall privately date it about 
this November ; for if we have not put new 
spirit into old forms, I don’t know who ever 
has done it.” 

“You make me curious. Miss Doris. Is 
not your room on exhibition?” 

“ Oh, I will let you see it, of course,” said 
Doris, throwing open a door not far from his 
own. 

It was exceedingly quaint and pretty, but 
old Mr. Wickham stood looking about with- 
out a word, and Doris was feeling disap- 
pointed, when he took off his glasses and 


THE NEW HOME. 


103 


began to rub them with his silk hankerchief 
as he said, 

Bless me, child ! but I can’t help think- 
ing of my mother’s own room as it was sixty 
years ago in Massachusetts. She had the 
facsimile, as I remember it, of that broad - 
topped bureau with the four swell-front 
drawers inlaid with brass around the key- 
holes. And that spindle-legged stand and 
those queer chairs ! Had you them all ?” 

Yes. That four-post bedstead I thought 
was ugly until Sarah proposed the muslin 
canopy. That little looking-glass was almost 
spoiled, but I regilded the frame myself and 
had a new glass. Those flower-pictures on 
the wall I have come to think are lovely, 
though I used to laugh at them ; my mother 
painted them on white velvet when she was 
fifteen years old. When I began this room, 
my idea was to use for myself as little as 
possible of the most available furniture, but 
I got as engaged over my old relics as any 
bric-a-brac collector, and I have cleaned and 
varnished and glued until I think of turn- 
ing cabinet-maker for a living.” 

‘‘You will do famously almost anywhere,” 


104 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


said Mr. Wickham, warmly, patting her 
head with his wrinkled hand. She looked 
very young and innocent with her eager 
gray eyes and her pretty color. She re- 
mained in her new room when Mr. Wick- 
ham retired and Sarah went to see about the 
first dinner, which was to be worthy of the 
occasion. For the weeks past Sarah had 
felt bound to be frugal to the last degree, 
but to-night she secretly asserted her inten- 
tions of setting forth a ‘‘ square meal.’’ 

Left alone, Doris drew her chair up to 
the grate — for Sarah had insisted that she 
should indulge herself in an open fire — and 
thought : 

I am going to love this house ; some way, 
I feel acquainted with it already, and every- 
thing in it. I really never seemed to have 
a home after mother died. I came back at 
vacations only as if I were visiting. How 
grateful I am that this house came to me 
like a gift from mother saving me from 
absolute poverty! I have never prayed 
much, but my mother was so good that no 
doubt she used to pray for me. Perhaps 
God has been answering just now some 


THE NEW HOME. 


105 


prayer that she made years ago for me. I 
do thank him for his goodness in every way. 
If Sarah had been a common servant, caring 
for nothing but her wages, how quickly she 
would have left me in my ignorance ! And 
Mr. Wickham ! There were other gentlemen 
who showed father every attention and used 
to be so polite to me when they came to 
dinner ; none of them have given me a 
word of advice or seemed to care what 
became of me, but Mr. Wickham has come 
exactly as if he were sent. He has never 
said a word about religion, but he seems 
like a Christian.” 

A w^hile longer Doris sat conscious of a 
quiet happiness in this her new home ; then, 
remembering that Sarah was doing without 
any help for the time that the family re- 
mained so small, she went down to set the 
table for her. It was a pleasant task while 
every article of the table furniture was in its 
first freshness. 

“ Well, I am glad to have you do it this 
time,” said Sarah, ‘^for I am afraid my 
chickens will burn, the new range fires up 
so powerfully; but after our income begins 


106 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


you are a boarder, remember, and are not to 
be working like this.” 

No ; I must learn to make you all the 
unnecessary work that I can. I must want 
everything you don^t have and tell about the 
place where I boarded last. Oh, I know a 
boarder’s privileges.” 

Sarah laughed as she sped back to her 
oven, and in due time dinner was ready. 
Harry Wickham, a bright young fellow, the 
old man’s nephew and assistant, came prompt- 
ly, and, though Doris considered him a 
mere boy, while he was but six months 
younger than herself, she liked his frank 
manner and roguish eye. 

The dinner was a success. Everybody 
was in excellent spirits, and so began a new 
chapter in Doris Barton’s life. 


CHAPTEE VI. 

ANOTHER HOME. 

“ But there were graves upon the hill, 

And sunbeams shining on the sod, 

And low winds breathing, ‘Peace, be still I 
Lost things are found with God.’ ” 

T here came a day when Margaret Ed- 
son had nothing to do — no butter to 
make, for the cows had all been sold; no 
housework to tire her, for that was reduced 
to almost nothing; no mother to care for 
and to nurse, because out in the old grave- 
yard was a new grave, and Mrs. Edson had 
gone to her husband. After their great 
trouble she had borne up very bravely. 
She ceased to fret and to murmur, and 
showed a faith in God that had not been 
manifested by her in better days. But in 
the early winter she took a severe cold, 
which developed into pneumonia, and in 
March John and Margaret found themselves 
alone in the world. John mourned for his 


108 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


mother more as a daughter might have 
done ; Margaret bore her grief icily. There 
were times when she talked as if she believed 
in an iron-hearted Fate whom she defied. 
This day, as she stood by the kitchen win- 
dow of the old farmhouse looking away 
toward the leaden clouds hanging low over 
the woods, she exclaimed, 

‘‘ I can bear it, for she is out of it all ; there 
is no more toiling like a slave for her. 
What was there before her but bitterer 
things than she had in the past? Just 
when other women of her age have all the 
comforts of life she was to be turned out 
of house and home. I would like to know 
what people mean by quoting that verse 
about the righteous not being forsaken. If 
ever there was a Christian, father was one ; 
and what did he get for it at last but blow 
after blow, and finally death? John and I 
may not be seen ‘ begging bread,’ but it will 
be because we would die first. We are poor 
enough for begging.” 

The March wind raved around the house. 
A forlorn old cat came crying at the dooi*, 
but Margaret did not move to let her in or 


ANOTHER HOME. 


109 


to light a lamp when the room began to grow 
dark. 

‘‘Are you here, Maggie?’’ called John, 
opening the door after a while. He heard 
her dull reply : “ Of course ; where should 
I be ?” and exclaimed, “ You should be tak- 
ing better care of yourself.” He stirred the 
fire, lighted a lamp, condoled with the old 
cat over her scanty rations, and then, laying 
his hand coaxingly on his sister’s shoulder, 
said, “Don’t worry, Mag; things are getting 
brighter. I have got steady work now in 
the warehouse, and what I earn will keep 
us very comfortably. I think we might 
try to rent a few rooms somewhere in town 
and keep ourselves.” 

Margaret made no answer ; she would not 
remind John that his work and his wages 
were those of a common day-laborer — John, 
who had planned such fine things for him- 
self. But why should she congratulate him? 
She did ask him just what he earned, and a 
good many other questions ; then she said, 

“You are a good brother, John — you are 
a great deal better than I am — but you need 
not suppose that I intend to be a load on 


no 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


* you. If mother had lived, we would have 
had, for her sake, to keep together ; but now 
you must spend what you make for what 
you need and save anything you can toward 
something better. I shall take care of my- 
self. I am going over to Hempstead City 
on Thursday to see if I can’t get into a 
shop as a clerk.” 

‘‘I don’t like that, Maggie,” said John, 
slowly. 

“ It is not a question of liking. I — ” 

There was a rap on the kitchen door, and 
then, before John could reach it, the latch 
was lifted and Miss Mears entered. During 
Mrs. Edson’s long and wearisome illness she 
had been a regular visitor. The Edsons 
had not known her very well prior to that 
time, and Margaret had not met her very 
cordially at first ; but Sarah paid no heed to 
her coolness. She brought cordials and jelly 
and broth to the sick woman ; she lifted her 
in her strong arms into easier positions and 
cheered her in dark days with promises of 
heavenly help. She was with her in death, 
robed her for the grave and did her best to 
comfort the bereaved brother and sister. 


ANOTHER HOME. 


Ill 


To-night she rubbed her cold hands briskly 
together as she exclaimed, 

Good for you, John ! I hear you have 
got work in the warehouse. It is honest 
work, and more manly, to my mind, than 
measuring cloth behind a counter; that, I 
think, is woman’s work.” 

Then you will approve of Maggie’s going 
into a store?” said John, putting a seat for 
her and himself taking one near by. 

“ ‘ Maggie’ ! ‘A store ’ ! ’ Indeed !” echoed 
Sarah, evidently surprised. 

John waited for Maggie to speak, but she 
only gave the old cat an impatient push — the 
cat, who promptly sprang into John’s arms 
and settled itself there, purring contentedly. 

“ I came over on purpose to propose some- 
thing else to Maggie,” said Sarah. 

“ What is it ?” asked the young girl, with 
sudden curiosity. 

Well, I ain’t prepared to say how it will 
strike you ; that depends on the amount of 
your common sense. I suppose there are 
plenty of folks here in Berkley who think 
I am on a par with any ignorant Irish cook 
in their kitchens ; that don’t bother me one 


112 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


atom. My father and mother were Connecti- 
cut people who lived respected and died with- 
out leaving a debt or an enemy. If I can 
keep house better than I could play the 
piano and talk literary, why it isn’t because 
J couldn’t have had an education if I had 
had brains enough to stand it. I took to 
cooking instead, and I ain’t ashamed of my- 
self, or of my occupation either. You know, 
both of you, how I got into keeping this 
boarding-house; it is going on as nice as 
a pin. So far I have paid all expenses and 
given satisfaction; before long I hope to 
have more to give and some to save. The 
brunt of the work I do myself — all the mar- 
keting and cooking ; then I have got a nice 
capable German girl to sweep, make beds, 
and all that. There is a sight of other 
things to do that have made me often wish 
that I had a daughter or some female rela- 
tion to take little jobs off my hands and to 
spare the girl more — somebody to go to the 
door and to see agents and peddlers and to 
give finishing-touches to the rooms and the 
table, to go on errands and to mend and see 
to the linen ; somebody intelligent and nice- 


ANOTHER HOME. 


113 


mannered to be on hand evenings when I 
am all tired out and want to go to bed. 
Miss Doris began by doing some such things 
for me, but I would not allow anything of 
the kind. She pays the same as full board 
and is not under the slightest obligations to 
me. I never, under other circumstances, 
should have ventured to rent such a house 
with furniture and start off as I have done ; 
she made it possible for me. Now, I want 
her to improve her time in study and in fit- 
ting herself for life; she is a child yet — ” 

‘‘Two years older than I am, is she not?’’ 
asked Margaret, simply. 

Miss Mears looked at Maggie sharply ; as 
she sat with her hands folded and her face 
rigid in its stern composure she looked 
twenty at least. 

“Margaret,” she said, plainly, “if you 
choose to come to my house and help me in 
such a way as I have mentioned, you shall 
have a home as long as we are mutually sat- 
isfied; you shall have a reasonable amount 
of time to yourself every day, with kindness 
and consideration. I cannot afford to pay 
you as much, perhaps, as you could make in 


114 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


many other places, but I shall not put hard 
work on you, for I do not think you could 
stand that, or close confinement. I think 
you are at an age when, with time to im- 
prove your mind and your manners ’’ (Mar- 
garet’s pale face fiushed, but Sarah went 
calmly on), you might make a nice woman. 
Now, people outside — and some of the board- 
ers too — may consider you as a servant, as, 
in a sense, every one who works for another 
is ; but I thought perhaps you would weigh 
one thing against another and be able to stand 
that. You can think the matter over and 
tell me to-morrow. I would prefer to have 
you come at once if at all.” 

“ You are splendid !” cried John, eagerly. 
— “ Why, Maggie, I should not take long to 
consider the matter. You do not know, for 
one thing, what a fine girl Miss Doris Bar- 
ton is — ” 

“ She has nothing to do with the thing,” 
said Maggie, sharply, adding, I thank you 
very much. Miss Mears. I never shall for- 
get your kindness to mother. I will think 
this all over, and will let you know in the 
morning. You would have me think well 


ANOTHER HOME. 


115 


before I undertake such a thing, I am 
sure ?” 

“ Certainly,” assented Sarah ; but John, 
who was a tritle surprised and disappoint- 
ed by his sister’s deliberation, fancied that 
Sarah felt somewhat the same. The latter 
remained a while longer, chatted pleasantly 
of various matters, and then, refusing John’s 
offer to accompany her home, she bade them 
‘‘ Good-night.” 

Margaret moved silently about the kitch- 
en as soon as Miss Mears had gone, prepar- 
ing their simple supper. As John drew his 
chair to the table he said, 

“ Maggie, if you feel the least bit disin- 
clined to go among strangers, or if you are 
tired — and I should think you would be — 
I want you to know that I can provide for 
you perfectly well. It will be living in the 
very plainest way, but we will not starve nor 
freeze.” 

‘‘ I know it, John, but, unless I am sick, 
I shall not let you support me ; I can work 
as well as you can.” 

“Then I am sure you will not hesitate 
long. Think of the difference between be- 


116 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


ing all day on your feet in a shop, shut up 
in the close air, found fault with, ordered 
about, forced, perhaps, to be constantly with 
low-bred girls or disagreeable men — the 
difference between such a place and Miss 
Mears’s home. She would be kind and 
considerate; everything would be comfort- 
able under her roof; you would be with 
well-bred people and have time to read 
and to learn things.’^ 

“You talk as if she had invited me to 
visit her instead of being a kind of upper 
servant.” 

“ I don’t see that you would be any less 
respected by sensible people than you would 
be in a shop, and I have no doubt your work 
would be easier than the work you have done 
at home for the last few years.” 

“Well, I would go there a good deal 
quicker if Doris Barton were not there.” 

“ Why ?” asked John, in surprise. 

“ Because I don’t fancy seeing her every 
day living in ease and luxury, while I — who 
might be independent if I had the money 
that her father stole from my father — may 
be allowed to work for my living under her 


ANOTHER HOME. 


117 


roof, and will be expected to be deeply grate- 
ful, no doubt, for the chance. I am every 
bit as good as Doris Barton this minute.’’ 

“ You said Doris had nothing to do with 
it, and in this sense I don’t think she has. 
She did not steal, and .1 do not believe she 
is any the better off through her father’s 
evil deeds.” 

John was going on to say more, but he 
wisely concluded to hold his peace. In one 
way he was loyal and self-respecting enough 
to think his sister as good as anybody ; nev- 
ertheless, he could not but see that where the 
one young girl was gracious and affable the 
other was grim and dispirited. But then 
Doris’s life had been all sunshine, and Mar- 
garet’s all shadow. 

Maggie made no more talk on the subject, 
but before John went to his work the next 
day she said. 

You had better hire a couple of rooms 
in some house where you can get them com- 
fortable, and yet cheap ; then we will put in 
them all the things we want to save, and will 
sell off the rest. We have nothing that is 
not too old to bring much. As to your meals. 


118 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


plan the way that suits you best ; I will do 
your washing and mending.” 

‘‘The mending, but not the washing,” 
put in John. 

“ And I have concluded to go to Miss 
Mears’s.” 

“ I don’t believe you will regret it,” said 
John, lingering to hear anything more 
Maggie had to say; but she was not in a 
communicative mood, so he picked up the 
cat and exclaimed, “ Yes, old Tabitha ; I 
will refrain from selling you at auction. 
You shall share my fortune and sing a duet 
with my tea-kettle in case I am my own 
cook and bottle-washer. If I can’t have 
any more horses, cows, pigs and chickens 
around me, I can support one cat, especially 
as my sister will not stay with me.” 

“I want you to have enough to eat, John, 
and then to save and save until you can get 
on and up in the world,” said Margaret, 
earnestly. She put down a cup she was 
washing as she continued with a resolute 
tone : “ I shall ; I do not see how, but I 
will. If I live ten years, I mean to accom- 
plish a few things. I am not going to live 


ANOTHER HOME. 


119 


in Doris Barton’s house for comfort ; I am 
going there to learn.” 

“ To learn what?” asked John, with vague 
ideas of Sarah’s superfine pastry and Doris’s 
embroidery (all girls embroidered) , but Mar- 
garet only answered, 

‘‘ Oh, to learn a great many things.” 

The rain was pouring as John left his 
sister, but she did not sit down to dreary 
meditations, as she had done the day before. 
She wrapped herself in an old blanket- 
shawl — for there were no fires except that 
one in the kitchen — and spent the morning 
separating the household articles which they 
would retain from those to be sent to the 
auction-rooms. That done, she gathered 
together her own personal effects pre|)ara- 
tory to going to Miss Mears’s. 

A long time after, in recalling this morn- 
ing, Margaret realized how two natures, each 
swaying her by turns, as it were, seemed 
struggling in her that dismal last day in the 
old farmhouse. Sometimes she reverently 
handled common things, vaguely feeling 
that, after all her old discontent, it was much 
to have lived that simple home-life under 


120 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


the loving care of a Christian father like 
Amos Edson. As she folded away the 
worn garments that her mother had done 
with for ever she wished tliat she had made 
life brighter for her. She had been an 
anxious, worried mother, but very tender 
and true-hearted. Yes, in the light of 
summer holidays, of long, sweet, restful 
Sabbath-days, of past Thanksgivings and 
cheery Christmases, the old farmhouse rooms 
seemed illumined with a beautiful after-glow 
which rested on Margaret’s spirit like a 
spell ; but when her work was done and she 
had sent a message to Miss Mears, the young 
girl turned her back on the past and uncon- 
sciously hardened her heart for the future. 

An old looking-glass hung in the kitchen ; 
taking it off the nail, Margaret carried it to 
the window and curiously studied her face. 
It was too thin, and the dark circles under 
her eyes, together with her dull, sad expres- 
sion, made her unattractive; but her skin 
was very delicate and her eyes were handsome. 
She said, as if talking to a second person. 
You are going to begin to make some- 
thing of yourself, Margaret Edson ; you 


ANOTHER HOME. 


121 


shall hereafter look as well as you can. 
You are stiff and glum ; you shall study 
how to be agreeable. No matter if you 
hate people, you shall learn to make your- 
self smile when it serves your purpose to do 
so. You shall go to that house and serve 
Sarah Hears faithfully, as it is for your 
interest to do, but some way and somehow 
you shall go higher. Good looks and good 
manners go a long way, but they don’t go 
far enough. If there is a book or a person 
or a picture from which you can learn some- 
thing, you shall learn it, for available know- 
ledge is the real power. John can’t be kept 
down ; neither shall you be.” 

All this was very girlish, and an unseen 
spectator might have thought Margaret only 
absurd, soliliquizing thus before her cracked 
glass in the dingy old kitchen ; but as the 
girl wills the woman often is. Even Sarah 
Hears would have been pained to notice how 
Margaret recognized the value of beauty, 
manner and intellect, but made nothing of 
her immortal soul. 

Gazing a while longer, Maggie let down 
the whole mass of her fine hair — always 


122 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


done up in ugly fashion to get it out of the 
way — and, carefully studying its effect, she 
arranged it becomingly. Satisfied with the 
result, she hastened to add simple white 
rufiles to the necks of her dresses, and to 
attend to little matters hitherto neglected. 
When John came home, he found her in 
excellent spirits. He was glad for her sake, 
but he wondered. All day he had been 
thinking with a homesick loneliness that 
he no longer had any home. For years to 
come, if he lived, he might earn a right to 
eat and sleep within strange walls, but it 
would be only as a stranger. He said noth- 
ing, however, to sadden Margaret ; only, as 
he took his lamp, to go to bed, he remarked, 
Margaret, if you don’t mind, let me have 
the old family Bible. You will keep mother’s, 
of course, but I believe I can live better if I 
only see that cover. Every time it brings up 
father as he bent over it in family prayers. 
What a good man he was!” 

‘‘And what did he get for it?” asked Mar- 
garet, in a hard tone. 

John turned with his hand on the door: 

“ He got heaven, and, after his weary life. 


ANOTHER HOME. 


123 


don’t you call ‘glory and honor and immor- 
tality ’ something? He got the res|)ect of his 
children ; and if we live a hundred years, we 
shall not lose the memory of his honesty, his 
kindness and his faith in God. He got a 
grand inheritance to leave us. Yes, when 
you have worried over that mortgage money 
all lost, I could not help thinking that if the 
Bible is true we never need fear for our fu- 
ture if only we are worthy of our father. 
God has a covenant with righteous fathers 
to bless their children after them. You ivill 
look at the dark side of things, Maggie. 
Suppose father had been very rich at his 
death ; he had to die, and money then would 
liave been nothing to him. Neither he nor 
mother ever came to actual poverty ; they 
feared it, but there was always enough.” 

“ But we have come to it.” 

“ Yes, but we are young, and in time to 
come we may not be any the worse off, but 
really more capable. I am cut up by this 
trouble, but I shall pull through, and so 
will you.” 

“ I suppose so. Yes, I will !” she added, 
with sudden energy, as John disappeared. 


CHAPTER YII. 

MISS MEABS’S HOUSEHOLD. 

“ Do not look for wrong or evil ; 

You will find them if you do : 

As you measure for your neighbor 
He will measure back to you.” 

Alice Carey. 

A S Sarah had said, the boarding-house 
^ was flourishing. Mr. Wickham declared 
that he was getting fat on ‘‘ meat properly- 
cooked and decent buckwheat cakes.’’ His 
nephew, who before this had no place to 
spend his evenings, stayed in the bright 
parlor, where there was music or society 
by no means stupid. 

Now, it is not at all necessary that the 
reader should learn about each boarder in 
Miss Mears’s new establishment, but to a few 
of them an introduction will be of advantage. 

One of the first to arrive had been a Miss 
Caxton, a very attractive lady about twenty- 
five years old. She was at the head of a 

124 


MISS MEABS’S HOUSEHOLD. 


125 


prosperous Kindergarten that had been 
started six months previously, and her ac- 
quaintance had already been of benefit to 
Doris. The latter had no sooner accustomed 
herself to her surroundings than she began 
to see the wisdom of fitting herself to teach 
in order to earn something. She was at 
present provided for ; but if Sarah’s health 
failed or her enterprise had to be given up, 
Doris might be in trouble. While she was 
pondering this matter Miss Caxton proved 
herself so amiable and intelligent that she 
resolved to ask her advice. She, having 
heard of Doris’s misfortunes, was drawn to 
her, and met her first advances with cordial 
interest. They secluded themselves in a 
cozy corner of the library one stormy even- 
ing, and Miss Caxton, after listening to Doris, 
exclaimed, 

I know exactly what I would do in your 
place. You are not forced to go immediately 
at anything; you can prepare, and that is 
well. Now, you say that you are fond of 
children, and you can sing very sweetly; 
you did not say so, but I have heard you 
sing. Why don’t you begin and study very 


126 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


thoroughly the Kindergarten system? It is 
taught in Hempstead City, and, that being 
so near, you could easily go and come for 
lessons. I myself can give you a great 
many ideas — I studied in New York — and 
when you are once thoroughly qualified and 
are a little older, I am sure you would like 
the work very much. I took it up of neces- 
sity, but you can’t tell how interested I now 
am in it. I taught once in a seminary, and 
there is no comparison between the work I en- 
dured then and the work I enjoy now. There 
I was bound by the rules of my superiors — 
rules that I did not approve. I had undis- 
ciplined, wild girls to tame — some who must 
unlearn before they could learn. I over- 
worked, and was six months ill with nervous 
prostration. Now I have little children who 
are apt and eager to learn all these new 
truths which are so interesting to teach. 
There is full play for all the originality and 
imagination that I possess, and their bright 
wits bring it out. It is a system constantly 
growing in favor. As I found in coming 
here to Berkley; there are openings every- 
where : I had no difficulty in getting thirty 


MISS MEARS’S HOUSEHOLD. 


127 


children the first term. You are young 
enough to feel young with them, you are 
winning in your ways and you love music, 
which I think is a great advantage. Now, 
why don’t you learn to teach a Kindergar- 
ten ? I do not expect to go on here in Berk- 
ley for ever ; in time to come you might step 
into my place. If you will forget ever to 
mention it, I will confide to you that there 
is — as somebody says, there always is in a 
woman’s future — ‘ a cloud no bigger than a 
man’s hand’ in my perspective. He” — and 
she laughed a little at her use of the personal 
pronoun — says he will not wait many more 
years.” 

“ Implore him to wait until I can fit into 
your shoes,” laughed Doris, in her turn, ‘Hor 
I believe this is the very thing for me to 
undertake;” and from that point they dis- 
cussed the matter for two good hours. 

“ How girls do chatter when two of them 
get together!” called out Mr. Wickham, 
teasingly. ‘‘Why can’t you let the rest of us 
know if you mean to cut it bias or trim it 
with silk, twisted pink gimps and a frill?” 

“We are only planning how to get the 


128 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


'money to pay the dressmaker/’ said Doris, 
but we have decided now ; so I will play 
you the piece that you are waiting for.” 

‘‘Do!” he returned, settling himself among 
the sofa-cushions. 

“And is there not something that I could 
do for you in return for calling me a girl ?” 
asked Miss Caxton. 

“ Pooh I you’ll be a girl ten years yet,” he 
muttered, with a glance at her wavy auburn 
hair and her fine frank face. She made him 
a little courtesy and went up to her room. 

When Doris had played a while, she ceased, 
and, seeing no one but Mr. Wickham left in 
the parlor, she told him what Miss Caxton 
had proposed to her. He was inclined to 
think it a very good idea. Doris was not a 
genius, neither was she a girl with any one 
decided talent. When so many excellent 
musicians were troubled to find pupils, he 
had little hope that she would succeed if she 
tried teaching music. She was not an artist 
— was, in short, only a bright, warm-heart- 
ed, willing girl. If Miss Caxton had tried 
what she advised and was finding it both 
pleasant and profitable, Mr. Wickham could 


3IISS MEABS’S HOUSEHOLD, 


129 


see no reason why Doris should not succeed. 
Therefore, before Doris left the parlor, it was 
decided that she should go to Hempstead and 
satisfy herself as to what was required, and 
also that she should visit Miss Caxton’s 
school and see it in working-order. 

As a result of that evening’s discussion 
Doris was soon deeply interested in Kinder- 
garten and began to fit herself for a teacher. 

There were two other boarders besides Miss 
Caxton whom we shall have occasion to know. 
One was a little, thin, washed-out-looking 
widow about sixty years old. She had pale 
eyes, a nervous manner, dressed untidily in 
very rich clothing, and rarely went out of 
her room except to her meals. Mr. Wick- 
ham, who had recommended her to come to 
Miss Mears’s, knew her merely as a client ; 
she had come from a distant city to see about 
some property of hers situated near Berkley. 
So far, Mrs. Allen had been a model boarder. 

About Miss Maria Dusenbury, Sarah had 
secret misgivings. She was a tall, energetic 
spinster who, while perfectly civil, had on 
taking her room punched the mattress, asked 
if the gas leaked, if any professiorial singer 

9 


130 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


was in the house, and made vigorous inqui- 
ries about drainage and pure air. She too 
was a new comer in town, and of her present 
pursuits or her past experiences no one could 
speak with authority. She received a great 
many letters and busied herself reading, 
writing and walking. 

Neither of these women was of the slight- 
est interest to Doris, who considered Mrs. 
Allen a nonentity and concluded that Miss 
Dusenbury was an agent of some sort. She 
herself was at no loss for means of entertain- 
ment, and so, with books, music and her new 
friendship with Miss Caxton, the short win- 
ter days went past. Every day she grew 
more light-hearted and fearless. 

“ Charity (or love) suffereth long, . . . 
seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked.’’ 
This was a verse which Doris had written in 
the little book which she had begun to make 
according to Sarah’s suggestion. She used 
to study these verses and test herself by 
them. This morning, as she sat in her 
sunny little room busy with an interesting 
bit of work, she said to herself. 


MISS MEARS^S HOUSEHOLD. 


131 


Everything goes along so placidly with 
me that I do not seem to get provoked. 
Perhaps, as Miss Caxton says, I am natu- 
rally amiable. I wonder if I am unselfish or 
if I do seek my own ? I suppose that means 
my own satisfaction, irrespective of other 
people’s, not caring anything about them.” 

On reflection, Doris was getting to feel 
very comfortable in her conscience. She 
assured herself that she sought Miss Mears’s 
interests, that she studied how to please Mr. 
Wickham, and that she made herself very 
agreeable to all the boarders. There was a 
tap at the door, and Sarah entered as soon 
she said, 

‘‘ Come !” 

“ Doris, I have taken a step on which I 
might have consulted you, but really I have 
been rushed so from one thing to another 
that I have not had time to explain the 
thing. I was sure you would approve.” 

More boarders ?” inquired Doris, pleas- 
antly. 

‘‘No; I have asked Margaret Edson to 
come here and live — for a while, at least. 
It is not charity on my part, for she does 


132 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


not need or want to be treated as if she were 
helpless, but I do mean it as a kindness 
and with this preamble Miss Hears stated 
her proposal to Margaret, which had been 
accepted. Doris did not manifest any very 
cordial interest as she proceeded, and when 
she ended only remarked, 

‘‘ I can see that you need extra help, and 
I hope this Edson girl will fit into her 
place.” 

“ Don^t you think she will ?” asked Sarah. 

“ If she knows what that place is, I con- 
fess I don’t. I suppose she is not to be a 
chambermaid nor entirely like a servant. 
She seems too proud for that, and I do not 
blame her. I would be so in her place, 
because her family were not low down or 
illiterate. But then, again, she is — or can 
be — very disagreeable. If she were the 
daughter of the wealthiest man in town, I 
should not like her. Probably she will 
consider herself a martyr if I do not treat 
her with entire familiarity, and I shall do 
nothing of the sort. I offered her hearty 
sympathy once, and she showed herself rude 
and revengeful. I shall, of course, remember 


MISS MEARS’S HOUSEHOLD. 


133 


that I am a lady, or mean to be one. How- 
ever, this has nothing to do with lier services 
to you. I hope she will be grateful and 
satisfy you, but she will more likely act as 
the charity scholars did in the seminary — 
be everlastingly on the lookout for slights 
and grievances.” 

Sarah silently gazed at the hearth-rug, 
feeling considerably depressed. Now that 
Margaret was coming, she doubted the wis- 
dom of her own kindly impulses. 

Seeing the shade on Miss Mears^s face, 
Doris spoke more hopefully : 

“Don’t worry, Sarah. It may be that 
everything will go smoothly. If Margaret 
is sensible, it will be a nice thing for both 
of you.” 

“ I hope so,” said Sarah, turning away. 

That afternoon Margaret came, and in 
twenty-four hours Sarah’s anxiety was ap- 
peased. With all her faults, Margaret had 
clear common sense and a certain worldly 
wisdom alien to Doris. When she stepped 
over the threshold, she said to herself, “ I 
will do my best, but no one shall look down 
on me. I can hold my own.” The boarders 


134 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


noticed at the table a tall, quiet girl who 
never spoke unless directly addressed, but 
her face and her voice were rather pre- 
possessing. Soon they supposed her to have 
some by no means menial position in the 
house, although they saw her constantly 
occupied in its concerns. 

‘‘ I declare, I never knew her equal,’’ ex- 
claimed Sarah, triumphantly, a few days 
after her coming. “ She moves around 
quietly, but she does what no Irish girl 
ever does — uses her brains. She never 
passes through a room without seeing if the 
curtains, the blinds, the heating-arrange- 
ments, are right. Not an article is missing 
from the tables, not a lamp-chimney blurred. 
She went to market for me, and did as well 
as I could have done myself; and when 
there is nothing to do, she behaves so — 
Well, you know what I mean. I would not 
like her to get herself off in a mean-spirited 
way, neither should I think it proper for 
her to undertake the entertainment of every- 
body in the parlor. She takes a book and 
reads or talks, if any one begins to talk to 
her, in such a refined, quiet way!” 


MISS MEABS’S HOUSEHOLD. 


135 


“ Yes, I think she does admirably,’^ said 
Doris, who had been herself impressed by 
Margaret’s tact in adapting herself to the 
situation. 

After Sarah’s first conversation with Doris 
relative to this innovation her Bible verse 
for that day returned to her mind, and she 
was conscious that she was ‘‘provoked” at 
Margaret, and not at all disposed to suffer 
long or be, in any demonstrative sense, at all 
“ kind ” to her. A little rebuked, she had 
met Margaret with less coolness than she 
had intended to show. She came upon her 
as she entered the dining-room, and, hesi- 
tating only an instant, shook her hand, 
saying, 

“I hope you are well, Margaret? Miss 
Mears feared you would be worn out this 
winter; she says that you are a wonderful 
nurse.” 

“ She ought to have said that of herself,” 
said Margaret, simply. 

They did not speak again during the 
meal, but Doris thought, 

“ How much better-looking she is than I 
realized ! Her face is intellectual and her 


136 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


hair beautiful. That plain black dress, too, 
is a great deal more becoming to her than 
were the faded cheap colors that she used to 
wear.” 

That evening, as Doris descended the hall 
stairs, Margaret was opening the door. A 
voice the former knew to be John’s was 
saying, 

“ Here is the box that you wanted me to 
leave to-night. I will bring you all the rest 
early in the morning.” 

“ Is that your brother ?” exclaimed Doris, 
in her friendliest tone. ‘‘ I have not seen 
him for six months.” She stepped to the 
door, saying, “Good-evening, John! Will 
you not come in?” 

“ I am not in evening-dress, or I should 
be delighted to do so,” replied John, stand- 
ing where the lamplight plainly revealed the 
rough clothes in which he had all day worked. 
He laughed a little as he glanced at his muddy 
brogans, and then at the visible parlor carpet, 
adding, “Nowadays ‘harmony with one’s en- 
vironment ’ is the proper thing, as you must 
remember.” He looked at Margaret, stand- 
ing stiffly by her box, at Doris, graceful and 


MISS MEAES’S HOUSEHOLD. 


137 


smiling, with the light making her hair 
gleam like gold ; then, turning, he said, 
‘‘At any rate, I am glad to have my sister 
here.’’ 

Doris liked John as openly and heartily as 
she had done at ten years of age, so, moved 
by a sudden impulse, she called after him, 
“ Come and spend your evenings with 
Margaret whenever you can, and you are 
more than welcome to any books we have 
if you get time to read.” 

John thanked Doris cordially, scarcely 
ending as Margaret shut the door. 

Doris, feeling quite sympathetic, said, 

“ I feel very well acquainted with your 
brother : we studied a whole term out of the 
same big Geography years ago. I had left 
mine under a lilac bush, and his dog chewed 
it up. I would not have a new one, because, 
when I sat by him to study, he kept his 
gingham apron pocket full of nuts. Think 
of a little boy now in an apron!” 

Margaret said, 

“ We had everything very old-fashioned 
when we were children then, taking up 
the box, she went away with it, thinking. 


138 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


‘‘I shall not trouble her to patronize me. 
I understand her now, perfectly : she wishes 
to be a lady, so she must not be rude. Well, 
I will make her duty easy. She notices my 
brother because she thinks it pleases him — 
as it does.” 


CHAPTER yill. 

ANOTHER WOMAN. 

“ Words are easy, like the wind ; 

Faithful friends are hard to find.” 

Shakespeaee. 

M argaret EDSON did not forget one 
sentence dropped by Miss Hears that 
evening when she offered her a home ; she 
had secretly resented it at the time, yet later 
she recognized its force. Sarah had said, 
taking it for granted that Margaret would 
assent, 

‘‘ You are at an age when, with time to 
improve your mind and manners, you would 
make a fine woman.” 

Now, she had received a fair amount of 
education and in mere book-knowledge was 
greatly the superior of Sarah herself ; but 
she understood, after all, what was meant. 

When Margaret had been a few weeks in 
the same house with Doris, whom she quietly 
studied, a change began in the former. She 

139 


140 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


was too sensible to imitate any one in a silly 
fashion, but she tried to find out wherein 
Doris surpassed her. As a result she moved 
less stifily and tried to appear more affable 
and interested when people spoke to her. 
She wore the same plain garments, but she 
constantly looked more attractive because of 
a new care about details. Over and over, 
as she was working, she often said to her- 
self, “ I must be genuine, not sham. I 
will know what it is to be perfectly well 
bred in manner and speech. I will profit 
by the knowledge, and will practice that 
knowledge if I live.’’ 

She devoted her spare time to reading 
and had very little to do with any of the 
boarders. She felt a mild curiosity which 
was half dislike toward Miss Dusenbury, 
and she bestowed no thought at all on 
Mrs. Allen. 

One morning, as Margaret was alone in 
the dining-room at some little task. Miss 
Mears entered the room with a puzzled ex- 
pression on her face, and asked, 

‘‘What sort of an impression has Mrs. 
Allen made on you, Margaret?” 


ANOTHER WOMAN. 


141 


“Well, she seems the nearest to nobody 
and nothing of any one I ever encountered.” 

“Humph! Well, I thought so first off; 
now I can’t make her out. I don’t know 
but she is a little cracked. She has moved 
every bit of furniture in her rooms a dozen 
times over; she has mounted her bedstead 
on glass blocks ; and when Mary goes to do 
her room-work, she talks very strangely to 
her.” 

“What does she say?” asked Margaret, 
getting interested. 

“ That is the queer part of it. Dutch 
Mary can’t repeat a word, but she declares 
it is like ‘ poetry-books ’ and ‘ sermons.’ 
Now, right in the middle of making her 
bed this morning, Mrs. Allen begged Mary 
to go away and ask me to send you up to 
her.” 

“ Me?” 

“ Yes, you ; so put down the silver, please, 
and find out what she wants. Probably 
Mary has offended her in some way.” 

Margaret obeyed at once, being by no 
means averse to seeing Mrs. Allen’s room, 
which Mary described as “ most unnatural.” 


142 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


She tapped lightly, and went in at the sound 
of Mrs. Allen’s thin voice. The unmade 
bed was almost in the middle of the floor. 
A costly white fur robe was flung over the 
sofa; an elegant writing-desk was covered 
with papers and journals. On the desk 
was a queer little wooden thing for some 
unknown purpose. A few pictures, chiefly 
portraits, hung on the wall ; the faces of some 
were covered with handsome Oriental scarfs. 
A big phrenological chart hung over the 
mantel, and the whole place was as evident- 
ly the apartment of a peculiar person as it 
was of some one used to luxury, for thrown 
carelessly in corners were heaps of rich satin 
cushions. A great vase of hothouse roses 
perfumed the air, and dainty bric-a-brac 
abounded. 

Mrs. Allen was half reclining in the sofa- 
corner. She smiled pleasantly, and motioned 
to Margaret to seat herself when the latter 
stood waiting to see what was to come. 

“ I can’t endure to have that gross, great 
creature pounding around my room any 
longer. Is there no one else who can make 
my bed and dust my room ? I feel as if a 


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ANOTHER WOMAN. 


143 


calf were let loose in here/’ said Mrs. Allen, 
with some animation of tone. 

“ Well, that is Mary’s business in the 
house,” replied Margaret. Is she noisy.” 

Oh, she is antagonistic ; as to that, there 
is nobody here sympathetic to me. Do you 
understand why you are not comfortable with 
certain people? I can’t explain it to you 
scientifically, but every one has an atmo- 
sphere, as it were, around him ; he crea- 
ates it. It is impalpable, spiritual, but none 
the less real. If another approaches whose 
atmosphere is of a sort repellent to the first, 
the two have no affinity ; association is 
then painful. And of course the reverse 
is true.” 

Indeed!” said Margaret, soberly. 

‘‘ I prefer you to any one in the house. 
You are not content with your surround- 
ings, are you?” 

‘‘ I have not the least reason to be discon- 
tented,” replied Margaret, wondering what 
next. 

“You help Miss Mears in some way, do 
you not?” 

“ Yes ; I am a sort of general assistant.” 


144 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


If you could take Mary’s place, I would 
like it — I mean in doing my room-work.” 

Miss Mears would not see the use of that, 
I think ; we have our special duties.” 

“ Well, I like you, and I don’t like that 
great Dutch girl. Tell Miss Mears that if 
she will allow you to come to me for these 
services I will pay you a dollar a week. It 
may be a whim, but I can pay for whims. 
Go ask her now, and come back and finish.” 

Margaret hesitated. A dollar a week for 
what could be done in ten or fifteen minutes 
a day was worth having. Mrs. Allen’s tone 
was not at all arrogant, but rather supplicat- 
ing. She went back and reported to Miss 
Mears, who exclaimed, 

‘‘ Mrs. Allen is a crank of some sort. How- 
ever, if she wants you enough to pay you a 
dollar a week, I advise you to try it. It is 
not your work at all ; and if she wishes to 
make irregular arrangements, it is right for 
her to pay an extra sum for so doing. She 
is rich, I am told.” 

When Margaret returned, Mrs. Allen was 
pleased, and while her bed waS^ being made 
she continued to talk in a curious fashion. 


ANOTHER WOMAN 


145 


In fact, Margaret could liken her remarks 
to nothing but the high-flown compositions 
of sentimental schoolgirls. She began to 
discourse about the ‘‘ true belief for the 
human heart ” and the ‘‘ religion of the 
future,” and just as Margaret approached 
a table to dust it she asked, 

“ Don’t you know that every mortal is in 
some degree mediumistic — that is to say, 
sensitive to the thought-power of some other 
mind?” 

“I do not know what you mean, Mrs. 
Allen.” 

No ? You have had some education, I 
think ; do you like poetry ?” 

Not all that is written.” 

“Well, I have some lovely poems of 
progress which I want you to read. I want 
some one to whom I can talk, for I am away 
from all my friends, and I am very lonesome 
at times. I have seen trouble.” She rose 
from the sofa, and, opening a drawer, took 
out an elegant blue satin case and held 
before Margaret the picture of a very lovely 
young girl. “ That was my only child, who 
died three years ago. You cannot tell from 
10 


146 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


this how beautiful she was. Such an ex- 
quisite complexion, and long, silky, . fair 
hair ! She was so good and very clever. I 
was giving her the finest education. — O my 
Lilian, how I have missed you 

The tears stood in the woman’s faded eyes, 
and Margaret was touched by this real 
emotion in the midst of what seemed to her 
mere talk for effect. She said with sincerity 
that she had never seen a sweeter face in a 
photograph. 

“ I saw that face once since she left me, 
but it was so dim ! and if I had not been 
assured that it was my Lilian, I might have 
doubted. There are no Spiritualists in the 
village, are there?” 

Everything was clear to Margaret then. 

‘‘ No,” she replied ; '' I do not know of 
any. Are you one?” 

‘‘ I am not as yet fully instructed in what 
seems to me the wonderful truth of their 
belief, but so far as I have gone I am one.” 

The last work was done, and Margaret 
had no pretext for lingering longer. She 
agreed to take Mary’s place from that time 
on ; then, saying, Good-morning,” she went 


ANOTHER WOMAN. 


147 


out and shut the door on this singular new 
acquaintance. She could scarcely have told 
why she merely said, when questioned by 
Miss Hears, 

‘‘ Mrs. Allen is notional. She seems to 
be a lady ; and if you are willing, I will do 
what she wants.” 

To herself Margaret said, 

‘‘ Miss Hears is so religious she might not 
want such a boarder in the house. I can 
see that she is a simple creature and maybe 
a little shattered. However, it is interesting 
to see any one so peculiar, and I want to 
hear more of her queer speeches.” 

The next morning Mrs. Allen gave Mar- 
garet a full account of a seance, or Spiritual- 
istic meeting, where a medium materialized 
the spirit of her daughter and she fancied 
she saw her Lilian's face. It was pitiable to 
see how the poor mother clung to that illu- 
sion, so longing to believe it true that she be- 
lieved all the other absurdities of the system 
lest doubt should take from her the supersti- 
tious comfort. She was naturally a credu- 
lous, confiding woman who, as Miss Hears 
privately declared, lacked common sense. 


148 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


She mistook the curiosity which Margaret 
began to express for interest excited by her 
communications, and from that day on she 
regarded the young girl with growing favor. 
From time to time she told bits of her per- 
sonal history. She had a home in New 
York City, but since the death of her 
daughter she had spent much time in trav- 
el with a sister-in-law. Margaret gathered 
from these confidences that this latter in- 
dividual had been the controlling power in 
Mrs. Allen’s life, the one who had directed 
her movements and cared for her interests. 
Six months previous to her entering Miss 
Mears’s house she lost this companion by 
death. 

Of all this Margaret said nothing. Why 
should she gossip about a boarder’s affairs ? 
she asked herself when it occurred to her 
that no one else in the house knew aught 
of Mrs. Allen. There was a very cool head 
on Margaret’s shoulders, and before long an 
idea came to her; she pondered on it 
through the weeks which followed. 


CHAPTER IX. 


“ TO SEE THE WORLD” 

“ You have too much respect upon the world : 

They lose it that do buy it with much care.” 

Shakespeare. 

A S the days went by everybody in Miss 
Mears^s house seemed to have settled 
into a contented mood and a cozy nook. 
Doris and Miss Caxton were good friends; 
they did not very often spend their evenings 
in the parlor, but in Doris’s room they 
chatted or read together. It was a matter 
of secret congratulation to Doris that Mar- 
garet Edson did not seem in the least to 
need her friendly overtures. Throughout a 
part of the day she was swiftly accomplish- 
ing her work, greatly to Sarah’s satisfaction, 
and the other half she was not lonesomely 
waiting to be noticed, as Doris rather selfish- 
ly feared that she would be. Mrs. Allen 
had little by little monopolized a great deal 

149 


150 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


of her time. She offered to pay Margaret 
for doing her sewing, and Sarah Hears, 
glad to have the young girl’s purse heavier, 
encouraged her to do all she could without 
overtaxing herself. The latter was perfectly 
satisfied, hut a little puzzled by Margaret. 

One evening, as the young lady promptly 
left an interesting book which she was read- 
ing to answer a summons of Mrs. Allen, Miss 
Hears said to herself, 

I can’t tell why it is so, but that girl 
seems to me a sort of a mystery. She has 
grown more in three months than Doris has 
in three years, and I don’t mean growth by 
inches, either, She isn’t a bit gossiping or 
prying, but not a word escapes her that is 
worth hearing. Every time Mr. Wickham 
speaks of a thing in politics or law that she 
don’t know, off she goes poring over the 
cyclopaedias ; but she listens just as keenly 
when Harry Wickham tells about the dan- 
cing-school and the skating-rink. How she 
has changed in her looks, too ! I declare, 
she would be downright stylish, if not hand- 
some, in fine clothes.” 

‘‘Miss Hears, do you know Mrs. Allen 


'TO SEE THE WORLDr 


151 


very well broke in a clear, somewhat 
sharp voice. 

Sarah, starting from her reverie, discovered 
Miss Maria Dusenbury knitting not far away, 
and saw that she was the only one now left in 
the room. 

‘‘ Mrs. Allen ? Yes — that is, no, I do not. 
She seems a feeble little body, very good-na- 
tured and generous.” 

Yes; she is all that. I don’t think there 
is anything wrong about her — that is, inten- 
tionally wrong — but I don’t think a weak- 
minded woman is a very good friend for a 
girl like this Margaret Edson.” 

‘‘Oh, you judge that it is friendship be- 
cause Margaret goes to her room so much; 
but, as you wonder at it, I will explain that 
it is purely business. Margaret sews for her 
and does some other things for which Mrs. 
Allen pays her well.” 

“ Do you know that Mrs. Allen is a 
Spiritualist ?” 

Sarah’s look of amazement being enough. 
Miss Dusenbury went on : 

“ In the first few weeks of our being here 
together she told me no end of nonsense 


152 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


about ‘ communications with the unseen 
world/ and she offered to lend me papers 
and books written by noted mediums. She 
showed me a little wooden thingamajig that 
she called Planchette, with which the spirits 
wrote out messages through human hands. 
If Margaret has been in her room, she has 
heard much of such nonsense.” 

‘‘ Oh, she would have told me if she had,” 
exclaimed Miss Mears. 

“ No ; perhaps not. I will tell you what 
it is. Miss Mears. I hate mean curiosity as 
much as anybody can, but I can’t help seeing 
and discovering things that other folks don’t 
notice ; I should have made a detective if I 
had been a man. Now, I warn you that 
there is a friendship between Mrs. Allen 
and this Margaret ; if you have any fear of 
it working harm — and I have — break it up 
in some way.” 

Sarah gazed at Miss Dusenbury, wonder- 
ing if she were a meddlesome old maid or 
were really interested in Margaret’s welfare. 
As if guessing her thoughts, the latter con- 
tinued : 

‘‘ I am too blunt to do good when I have 


‘TO SEE THE WORLD: 


153 


a chance. I came right out and showed 
Mrs. Allen that I thought her a fool, and 
naturally she did not set her affections on 
me after that. I have been sorry, for she 
is a lonesome, sickly creature and as igno- 
rant of Christian truth as it is possible for 
her to be.” 

‘‘ Poor thing ! Still, as you say, she is not 
a proper companion for a young girl,” said 
Sarah, reflectively ; and Miss Dusenbury, 
after a pause, began to talk of something 
else. 

Margaret as she went up stairs stood a 
moment or two outside Mrs. Allen’s door, 
lost in thought. Yes, Mrs. Allen was a 
weak woman ; no one knew that better than 
Margaret, who had listened with perfectly- 
concealed contempt and weariness to all the 
Spiritualistic nonsense of which Miss Dusen- 
bury had told Sarah. Native common sense 
and a clear intellectual knowledge of Bible 
truth kept Margaret from any danger of 
becoming a convert to such an ism. Never- 
theless, she was being tempted by something 
within herself. She opened the door and 
greeted Mrs. Allen pleasantly, while that 


154 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


lady made room for her on the sofa where 
she sat, saying, 

‘‘ My head ached, and I wanted to be 
amused ; so won’t you talk to me of some- 
thing entertaining ?” 

Now, Doris, who thought Margaret far too 
reticent to be very companionable, would 
have been surprised at the ease with which 
she began to talk of a bright story she had 
just read in the evening paper. That told, 
she adroitly drew Mrs. Allen to talk of her- 
self, well knowing that nothing is more en- 
tertaining than self to little minds. Soon 
the lady was all animation, worrying over 
affairs at her New York house, wondering 
how long she must remain here and dolefully 
lamenting that everybody she cared for was 
dead. 

I have not even a companion, now that 
my sister-in-law has gone. I can’t travel 
unless I hire a maid and take her along. 
The last one I had stole my linen and a lot 
of fine lace, and did nothing right for me.” 

It is a pity that you have no nieces.” 

No ; I am all alone in th^ world, sick 
and nervous as I am.” 


’TO SEE THE WORLD: 


155 


‘‘ Yes, you need some one to be with you 
all the time. You were cheated yesterday 
in buying those handkerchiefs of that ped- 
dler. Why didn’t you call me to send her 
away?” said Margaret. 

Oh, you were busy somewhere. How 
came so young a girl as you are to be so 
cool and clear-headed ?” 

“ I have had to be so ; people with only 
a little money must care for that little.” 

‘‘And yet I hear that your family were 
all intelligent, refined people,” said Mrs. 
Allen, half to herself adding, “You could 
fit in anywhere.” 

“ I believe I could,” said Margaret, firm- 
ly, though her cheeks grew a little pale. A 
certain plan had been getting possession of 
her fancy ; she almost believed the same idea 
was occurring to Mrs. Allen. 

The lady silently regarded a crimson 
screen a few minutes before she spoke the 
half-expected words that filled Margaret 
with intense excitement: 

“Mr. Wickham says that my business 
must be all settled by April. Now, I have 
a proposition to make to you : Suppose, with- 


156 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


out paying you regular wages as a hired 
maid, I offered to take you away — say for 
six months — -just as I might take a relative? 
I will buy you nice clothes and pay all your 
expenses. We will go back to New York 
for two months, then to some watering-place. 
You will see something of the world — not 
much society, but plenty of new places and 
things. In return you will amuse me, see 
that I am not cheated, will write my letters, 
mend my clothes, fuss over me if I am sick, 
read to me, and, in fact, do the things that 
you know please me. You are good-looking 
and know a great deal ; besides, I like you. 
Will you do it?” 

Margaret, watching the woman’s nervous 
hands twitching at the frayed tassel of her 
elegant wrapper, asked quietly. 

Must I bind myself to any definite time? 
You are very kind, but everything would 
have to be understood.” 

No, only I should not expect you to 
leave me suddenly.” 

‘'Of course not. Well, Mrs. Allen, if 
you will please not speak of this at all until 
April to any one in the house, and will give 


TO SEE THE WORLD: 


157 


me a day to think, why I am very sure I 
shall be glad to go with you. I have my 
own way to make in the world ; and the 
more I know, the better I can do it.’’ 

“ Exactly,” said Mrs. Allen, beginning 
already to look tired of that topic. 

Margaret at once commenced to talk of 
something sure to interest her, and any out- 
sider would easily have seen how Margaret 
already seemed to know every foible, every 
whim, of this simple little woman. When, 
at last, Mrs. Allen declared herself sleepy, 
Margaret attended to her fire, her curtains, 
brought her fresh water, helped her to un- 
dress and made her quite comfortable. She 
made no hypocritical demonstrations of affec- 
tion, for she was not hypocritical even if 
she were silently pursuing a way unknown 
to all. When she shut herself, later, into 
her own little room, her heart beat fast with 
excited emotions. She was ‘‘ getting on ” in 
the world. 

‘‘ Not that I am silly enough to think that 
this is anything in itself,” she mused, “ un- 
less it leads to more — this six months’ inter- 
course with Mrs. Allen ; but it must be a 


158 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


stepping-stone. She is a foolish creature, 
but she is rich, and I can use her while I 
help her. She needs some one to be with 
her, and I will deal honorably by her. If 
she gives me a chance to see and to learn, I 
will make her comfortable and take good 
care of her. I can ; I am older than she is 
this moment. I have done my duty with 
Sarah Mears; I will do it by Mrs. Allen and 
by Margaret Edson.’’ 

John would not approve, very likely, as 
she reflected, but John had not her life to 
live. Sarah Mears, perhaps, would be dis- 
pleased, but then, too, Sarah had no right to 
stand in the way of her advancement. She 
was glad to remember that no one could 
exercise actual authority over her. In the 
face of decided opposition she could do as 
she saw flt. 

With a brain teeming with new ideas and 
bright pictures of a possible future, Mar- 
garet stayed awake long after midnight. 
The next day Sarah Mears had a prolonged 
conversation with her which left that good 
woman vaguely dissatisfled, and which 
caused her to say several times that day to 


TO SEE THE WOULD: 


159 


herself, ‘‘You are not smart enough for that 
girl. She is beyond you, Sarah Mears.” 

When she asked Margaret if she knew 
that Mrs. Allen was a Spiritualist, the young 
girl frankly admitted that she had talked of 
her peculiar beliefs and had wearied the lis- 
tener exceedingly, but, so long as no one 
else in the house appeared to know of it, it 
seemed like gossip to be telling what she 
herself saw and heard in a boarder’s private 
apartment. She told Sarah the simple truth 
so far as she told her anything, but of Mrs. 
Allen’s proposal she said nothing. 

“Poor deluded creature!” exclaimed Sarah. 
“ Let us see if we can’t among us all do her 
some good. If we could get her to come 
down stairs of an evening, we might take 
her mind off such folly. I thought she 
never went to church because she felt too 
ill. We ought to get her out to hear the 
gospel ; she must be a perfect heathen.” 

Margaret assented, but, even with Miss 
Dusenbury to aid and abet her, Sarah made 
no headway. Mrs. Allen politely declined 
all their advances; she had a headache, or 
she feared neuralgia, or long services tired 


160 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


her. Warned, perhaps, by Margaret, she 
never spoke to any one else of her peculiar 
views ; and when, at last, she announced that 
she should give up her room in three weeks. 
Miss Mears was half glad, half sorry, but 
wholly convinced that it was best for Mar- 
garet that Mrs. Allen should go. She paid 
more than any other boarder, but she con- 
stantly made demands on Margaret’s time 
which, even though she rewarded her liber- 
ally, seemed somewhat queer. 

John Edson had not spent a great deal of 
time with his sister. He was glad to know 
that she had so nice a home, and he knew 
that she was every day improving in mind 
and in manners. As for himself, when at 
night he came back to his plain lodgings, he 
was very tired, and less inclined to go out 
again than to sit down with his paper or his 
book. His work was neither easy nor agree- 
able, and was one wherein his education was 
of little avail. But early in the season John 
was much pleased to get a position as book- 
keeper at what seemed to him an excellent 
salary ; it would enable him to have many 
more comforts and to lay by something. 


'TO SEE THE WORLD: 


161 


The day after he was sure of his good for- 
tune he met Miss Hears in the street and 
told her, but he asked her to say nothing to 
his sister ; he meant to call that evening and 
surprise her. Sarah entered heartily into 
his interests, and before they parted a pleas- 
ant little arrangement was completed. Miss 
Hears had a small bedroom which hitherto 
had not been quite fine enough to suit any 
applicants for board ; she offered it to John 
at so reasonable a price that he took it 
gladly, with table-board. In this way he 
could enjoy Margaret’s society and spend 
his evenings in cheerful company. It was 
with a very light heart that he parted with 
Miss Hears, having before he left her planned 
to send all his valuables around to her house 
in the afternoon, and then come later pre- 
pared to stay, thereby, of course, doubly 
surprising Margaret. 

At six o’clock precisely John appeared 
dressed in his best and explained with a 
roguish twinkle in his eye that he had 
“ dropped in to dinner.” Sarah, amused at 
Margaret’s effort to conceal her surprise at 
his boldness, welcomed him warmly. Mr. 

11 


162 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


Wickham, by whom he happened to sit, 
engaged him in a lively conversation. Doris, 
not feeling well, was not present. 

After dinner, when the brother and the 
sister were alone together in the library, 
John told her his new plans. He was as 
hurt as he was puzzled by the expression 
on Margaret’s face, and, stopping abruptly, 
he exclaimed, 

“ Perhaps for some reason my coming is 
going to be disagreeable to you ? If it is, I 
will not think of staying. I never thought 
of that. I expect to dress sufficiently well, 
and — ” 

Oh, John,” cried Margaret Edsoii, with 
unusual earnestness, ‘‘you know I am proud 
of you, or you ought to know it ; but there 
is something I must tell you, and I am afraid 
you will not like the idea at first But wait 
until I have shown you the advantage that 
it may be to me. I am not going to be here 
after the first week in April.” 

With an exclamation of astonishment, 
John asked, 

“ Where are you going, Margaret ?” 

Bhe hesitated at first, and then grew 


'TO SEE THE WORLD: 


163 


flushed as she rapidly told her intention 
of going with Mrs. Allen. 

John listened in silence until she had 
quite finished, but his face clouded as he 
gave his opinion : 

‘‘ Of course, Maggie, I would hate to have 
you go away from Berkley any. way ; but if 
it was for your benefit, I would not say a 
word. I don’t see how this will be so at all. 
To begin with, I don’t like your being with 
such a foolish woman as Mrs. Allen. You 
admit she is silly and has no religion. You 
cannot enjoy her society or learn anything 
from her.” 

Well, I might do her some good,” said 
Margaret, casting about for an argument in 
haste. 

‘Ms that the reason you want to go?” asked 
John, looking her keenly in the eye. 

“ No ; I want to see the world.” 

“The world will keep a while longer, 
Maggie. Why, I can’t see what temptation 
there is in this. She promised you new 
clothes, but you are not so fond of finery. 
What you earn and what I can give you 
now will buy you good-enough things. 1 


164 


AFTER THE FATLUBE. 


should have said you would have had too 
much pride to want to go as a waiting-maid 
to a woman really your inferior in some 
ways.” 

Margaret started to interrupt him, but he 
went on : 

And it suits me even less to have you go 
as an equal among such friends as she may 
have. Here every one knows us, and so 
long as we behave ourselves everybody will 
respect us. There is a verse in the Bible 
something like this : ‘ Thine own friend and 
thy father’s friend forsake not.’ I don’t 
think you will really gain by exchanging 
Miss Mears’s friendship for Mrs. Allen’s. 
I don’t believe, if mother and father were 
alive, they would like to have you go from 
a safe home away with a comparative 
stranger.” 

‘‘But they are not alive, and I am an 
individual, John, with my own life to live 
and my own way to make. I am not made 
as you are; I am more worldly. I want, 
and I shall go on wanting, to do and to have 
things that never will attract you. We 
must each decide some matters without — 


“TO SEE THE WORLDS 165 

Well, without reference to the other, where 
it is a purely personal affair.’’ 

Everything that affects your real welfare 
is of importance to me ; 1 can’t be indiffer- 
ent to my own sister,” said John, reproach- 
fully. 

‘‘ And I don’t mean that, you solemn old 
fellow ! but why will you always be so con- 
scientious or so wise over little things ? 
What is there in my going for a few weeks 
to make any ado about ? I can come back 
if everything is not well.” 

‘‘ Don’t go at all, Maggie ; give it up for 
my sake. I promise to take you to New 
York and to show you the world if we live 
and are prospered. I can’t endure the idea 
of your going in this way.” 

Unless Maggie would relent once and for 
ever, giving up the whole plan, she knew 
that this was the point at which she must 
harden her heart ; for here was to be applied 
the greatest pressure. She loved and trusted 
John, but she held out stiffly even when she 
was half tempted to say, ‘‘ I will stay, after 
all.” 

They talked until late, John arguing, 


166 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


pleading and even warning, Maggie, in 
return, explaining, refusing, and finally get- 
ting obstinately fixed in her determination. 

Miss Mears was completely taken by 
surprise when Margaret next day thanked 
her stiffly for all her kindness and told her 
that she was going to go away with Mrs. 
Allen. Unfortunately, Doris came suddenly 
into the diniug-room, and Margaret, who 
was in the middle of her statement, felt 
forced to go on. The look of surprise — 
half contemptuous, as she fancied — which 
came on Doris’s pretty face made Margaret 
almost ungracious at Sarah’s first expression 
of regret. The good woman heartily dis- 
approved of the plan from considerations 
wholly aside from the girl’s connection 
with her, but just because Margaret was so 
efficient and would be a real loss to her she 
was embarrassed in objecting to Margaret’s 
going, especially as Mrs. Allen was to all 
appearances kind, generous and entirely 
honorable. 

‘‘ Oh, I don’t believe I would go if I were 
in your place,” exclaimed Doris, impulsively. 

I cannot imagine you in my place, much 


'TO SEE THE world: 


167 


less can you imagine yourself there/’ said 
Margaret, coolly. 

“ Does your brother want you to go ?” 
asked Sarah. 

I respect my brother’s opinions, but I 
think for myself, and I have decided.” 

Miss Mears was indignant; she with- 
drew reflecting, ‘‘ There is no fool like an 
obstinate fool.” 

Doris lingered, vaguely troubled. She 
rearranged some oranges in a fruit-dish, and 
said cordially, 

I am sorry you are going.” 

‘^It will not make any difference; Miss 
Mears can soon fill my place.” 

I was not thinking of that. I was only 
yesterday thinking that Miss Caxton and I 
had been a little selfish this winter ; or per- 
haps I was most to blame, for this Kinder- 
garten study has taken up my mind,” said 
Doris, hurried, her tone quite nervous. “ I 
was thinking we — you and I — had not seen 
much of each other. I was going to ask 
you to read with us evenings.” 

“ Thank you ! My time has been pretty 
well filled. Mrs. Allen is not extremely 


168 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


intellectual, but she has been very kind and 
friendly/’ 

There may or may not have been any 
intention of sarcasm on Margaret’s part, 
but Doris went to her room ill at ease. No 
one could accuse her of treating Margaret 
in any but the most courteous manner since 
she entered the house. What, then? Was 
she to blame that they were not congenial, 
as, for instance, were Doris and Miss Cax- 
ton? Conscience whispered that she had 
never tried to win Margaret by a single 
really sympathetic device; she had studied 
Miss Caxton’s tastes, had showed that she 
desired her acquaintance. To Margaret she 
had been ladylike, nothing more. Once, 
speaking critically of her, she had thought 
herself rather clever to quote Shakespeare’s 
saying that ‘‘society is no comfort to one 
not sociable.” Had she not wasted a chance 
to brighten the life of a girl more lonely, 
with fewer resources than herself? Marga- 
ret disliked her, but Doris knew that the sun 
would melt ice. She knew that she never 
failed to win the friendship of any one to 
whom she had laid innocently artful siege. 


^TO SEE THE WORLD: 


169 


That evening it chanced that John had 
his first little chat with Doris, and almost at 
once asked her, 

‘‘ Can’t you persuade my sister to give up 
this new notion? You must have consider- 
able influence over her, and girls know how 
to appeal to one another.” 

“ No ; I have not a bit of influence with 
Margaret,” said Doris, slowly. 

“ Oh, you must have a great deal. I have 
been so glad to think of you here together 
all this winter. Nobody knows the best of 
Maggie who does not live with her. She 
has had a shut-in, dull life without many 
friends — with almost none of her own age. 
You both having lost friends and being . so 
thrown together, I know Maggie must like 
and believe in you, and — ” 

The truth is,” said Doris, with real pain 
in her tone, ‘‘ I ought to be ashamed of my- 
self, and I am. Margaret is a little cool in 
her manner, and so self-reliant that one 
never thinks of her needing — Well, what 
a more effusive sort of girls just claim nat- 
urally. It was for me to draw her out and 
show her that I wanted her to like me be- 


170 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


cause — Well, I was here first and am more 
at home ; but I have just some way waked up 
to see that I have been selfish and cold- 
hearted myself. It is of no use to tell her 
all this now ; that would look — would only 
hurt her pride. But if I had done as I 
wish I had done, perhaps Mrs. Allen would 
not now seem to be her warmest friend.” 

John looked disappointed, as he was, and 
he made no soothing apologies for Doris; he 
never knew that her humiliation worked for 
his own good. In Doris’s eyes he was just 
honest John Edson, a good fellow struggling 
for a place among men ; and if Margaret had 
stayed, she would scarcely have given him 
one thought a day. Now it occurred to Doris 
how lonesome John would be here, where he 
had expected to have his sister constantly 
with him. She resolved to talk to him 
herself, to lend him books and to take in 
some measure his sister’s place. 


CHAPTER X. 

DR. FELTON, AND OTHER TOPICS. 

“ T OUGHT to have a letter from John/’ 
J- said Margaret Edson one day to her- 
self ; it is almost three weeks since I heard 
from him. He thanked me then for telling 
him so fully of ^lectures, pictures and books/ 
but he wished I would put in a ‘good deal 
more of Margaret Edson.’ I can’t. John 
would not understand my life ; I hardly un- 
derstand it myself. Any way, it is a great 
change from the old farmhouse, and I am 
changed a little myself in this year since I 
saw him. I fancy now that Doris Barton 
would seem to me like scores of other young 
ladies ; I used to think her rather remark- 
able.” 

But what a change Doris would have seen 
in Margaret! Not one of the deferential 
servants in Mrs. Allen’s elegant New York 

171 


172 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


home was there who did not suppose that the 
stately and stylish Miss Edson had all her 
life been accustomed to every luxury, and 
that she was as ignorant of dishwashing and 
room-cleaning as a princess-royal. She put 
on no airs; she was, they said, ‘‘a real lady,” 
but a very dignified one. Mrs. Allen left all 
orders to her, trusted her judgment, could 
not select a yard of ribbon without her. 
Margaret dressed very handsomely, and yet 
was laying up a little sum which later she 
meant to force on John. She felt no humil- 
iating sense of being patronized, for it was a 
tax on body and brain to be to Mrs. Allen 
what she was. She frequently told herself 
that she ought to be very happy. She had 
traveled, she had seen life at fashionable 
resorts, she had had glimpses of — yes, had 
mingled a little with — New York society as 
Mrs. Allen’s friend.” But enjoyment had 
not been an end with Margaret : culture had 
been. From every person or place she had 
learned all of advantage that could be gained. 
How she had read and studied ! Still, was 
she happy? Well, for one thing, Mrs. Allen 
was one of the most tiresome women imagin- 


DR. FELTON, AND OTHER TOPICS. 173 

able, talking endlessly of nothings, restless, 
tired of herself, utterly without resources 
of amusement if Margaret failed to supply 
them. After the excitement of travel ceased 
and the first satisfaction of a life of luxury 
dulled a little, Margaret was somewhat sur- 
prised to find that she could be affected by 
the same ennui that had depressed her in 
the old farmhouse, and that, too, while she 
was in full possession of all she had then 
longed for ; but of late new acquaintances 
had proved interesting. 

To-day, as Margaret sat by the window in 
a great velvet chair, she often glanced from 
the gay street-life on the beautiful avenue to 
a basket of crimson and yellow roses on the 
table near her ; she was evidently pleased 
by their beauty or by some thought which 
they recalled. She did not hear, until the 
girl standing in the doorway repeated a 
second time, 

‘‘ Dr. Felton would like to talk with you 
of Mrs. Allen’s health. He is in the 
library.” 

A faint smile hovered around Margaret’s 
lips as she rose and glanced in the mirror. 


174 


AFTER THE FAILVRE, 


Dr. Felton had so much to talk of nowadays 
besides what could be considered as strictly 
professional topics ! 

The doctor was quite at ease when Mar- 
garet entered the luxurious library, and he 
greeted her in the affable way she knew so 
well, saying a moment after, 

‘‘We must get up a new excitement for 
our little lady. She can’t travel this weather ; 
she does not care for theatres. I have been 
deliberately luring her on to ruin or to 
fortune. I really believe if she would buy 
some stocks and speculate, or watch some- 
body else do it for her, she would get inter- 
ested and forget her new aches and ails. 
Maybe she would lose money — one never 
knows: I’ve burned my own fingers once 
or twice — but then, again, one makes.” He 
talked lightly, as if he were not more than 
half in earnest. 

Father a handsome man with a pleasing 
way was Dr. Felton. He had all sorts of 
hobbies, was a “specialist,” affected to de- 
spise the “regular profession” and gloried 
in being irregular ; he could talk brilliant- 
ly about welcoming new light from any 


DTt. FELTON, AND OTHER TOPICS. 175 

source and breaking loose from tradition. 
His practice Margaret could not be expected 
to understand, but his patients — especially 
those of Mrs. Allen’s clique — declared that 
his personality was a singularly magnetic 
one.” 

‘‘ If Mrs. Allen, now, had a whole clam- 
orous brood of poor relations howling around 
her, that would distract her attention,” he 
suggested. 

‘‘Very likely,” laughed Margaret, “but 
she has not ; she is the last of her race — or 
so she says.” 

He echoed her laugh cheerily : 

“Well, that heroic treatment can’t be 
applied. What a lucky woman, to be rich 
and have only one charming young relative ! 
But she is not satisfied. Yes, I believe I 
will set her to speculating. Oh, women 
are such perfectly reckless stock-gamblers, 
and they get so excited! just as they would 
if they could vote, and so talked preparatory 
politics. Now, if I advise her to invest in 
the Rainbow Railroad or in the mines just- 
opened in the moon, don’t you bring that 
wise head of yours into the question. She 


176 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


does not need wisdom ; folly is better for 
such a nervous little body.’’ 

Margaret hardly thought him in earnest, 
but she said, 

« Why, you don’t want her to lose money, 
do you ?” 

‘‘ Oh, never mind that ! I fancy the late 
lamented Allen was a kind of a Croesus.” 

He waited for Margaret’s response, but 
she merely remarked, 

‘‘ Is stock-gambling, then, good for nervous 
people ?” 

He only smiled, saying. 

Did the roses get to you in good order?” 
Oh, they were lovely !” 

“As they should be, to be in keeping,” 
he added, with a significant glance which 
Margaret seemed not to see. 

Leaning back in his easy-chair. Dr. Fel- 
ton turned the leaves of a new magazine and 
made running comments on the articles. He 
was well informed, knew personally sev- 
eral writers of some note and had written 
a few stray articles for the press himself; 
the airy, semi-satirical strain in which he 
could talk of such matters seemed quite 


DR. FELTON, AND OTHER TOPICS. 177 

brilliant to Margaret. But after a time he 
dropped general topics and drew her on to 
tell him a little of her former life. She had 
no silly pride ; she was not in the least con- 
cerned that he knew she was, and always 
had been, poor. Perhaps if she had not 
felt so self-reliant, so sure she could make a 
way for herself in the world, she might not 
have been so sincere. Or there may have 
been a deeper reason why she wished him to 
have no illusions about her. His interest 
was, at any rate, pleasant, and, while he had 
too much tact to flatter grossly, he implied a 
vast deal of admiration for Margaret’s 
superior intellectual qualities. 

“It is really touching, now. Miss Edson, 
to see how Mrs. Allen leans on you ; she 
could not do without you. Confess that you 
see that.” 

“ Oh, she needs some one, and I happen 
to be able to help her in many ways. But 
I can assure you that it is no one-sided ar- 
rangement : she gives as much as she gets,” 
returned Margaret. 

“ I doubt that. Mere money ” — and the 
mild contempt with which he uttered these 


178 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


words impressed Margaret with the realiza- 
tion that she must be sordid if money meant 
anything to her — “ Mere money cannot pay 
for the thoughtful delicacy, the brains, you 
lend to her service. But you are virtually 
her daughter now; she will regard you in 
that light.’’ 

Margaret, conscious that she was stronger 
than Mrs. Allen, was secretly amused at the 
fancy of Mrs. Allen in any such relation, 
but the real delicacy which she did possess 
kept her from discussing Mrs. Allen with 
any person. 

Dr. Felton, waiting for an answer, argued 
that silence meant consent. ‘‘ She is no fool ; 
she knows her advantage and will use it,” he 
said to himself as he let his talk wander off 
again to other matters. 

It was almost dark when the doctor rose to 
go, and he had scarcely left the room when 
the maid brought Margaret a letter from 
John. She hurried to the window, drew 
back the heavy curtains, and eagerly read 
it by the waning light; John was the one 
person who stood for everything that was 
best in Margaret’s life : 


DR. FELTON, AND OTHER TOPICS. 179 

^‘Dear Sister: You know I never have 
neglected writing you unless I had a good 
reason ; I am exceedingly busy nowadays. 
‘ To begin at the beginning/ as you used to 
say, I have been for the past year in the 
habit of studying evenings. Mr. Wick- 
ham — who, by the way, is a grand old fel- 
low, as you will see — got up a good deal of 
curiosity about me and my doings. As he 
liked to give advice, and as I did not object 
to receive it if it was a first-class article, I 
have now gotten into his good graces to an 
astonishing degree. Young Wickham, his 
nephew, is a well-meaning fellow, but so full 
of fun that he has been capering a little fool- 
ishly of late. I did not think his uncle knew 
it, but I did my best to make Harry slack up, 
and he did so — perhaps because he himself 
saw that he was really going too fast. Mr. 
Wickham attaches a great deal too much im- 
portance to my influence over Harry. Well, 
judge of my amazement when the old gen- 
tleman began to talk college to me! I told 
him how I was situated, but he was just as 
earnest. He wants me to enter in the course 
of a few months, and insists on giving me a 


180 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


start. He will lend me necessary funds and 
await payment until I am able to make it. 
How much I borrow will, of course, depend 
on economy and the chances of paying my 
own way by extra work in vacations. I 
have gladly fallen into the temptation, and 
so, dear Maggie, my hopes are, after all, to 
be realized. This waiting has been right 
good for me; I have learned a great deal 
that will be of use hereafter. I am as de- 
termined to be a minister as ever I was. I 
shall be very sorry to leave this place, which 
has been a home to me. Sarah Mears is as 
true-hearted a Christian as ever lived. Doris 
Barton is a very interesting girl ; I wish you 
had known each other better. When my 
plans are perfected, I will tell them all to 
you in detail. 

“And now, Maggie, what about yourself? 
Sometimes, when I think of you, I cannot 
tell whether to be glad or sorry. I can 
understand that you will see and learn a 
great deal, but oh, Maggie, don’t forget that 
if mother and father were unfashionable and 
simple folks, they were as good as gold. I 
know you do not value money too much in 


DR. FELTON, AND OTHER TOPICS. 181 

one way, but even the things that money 
provides are not the very best things. Doris 
Barton is behind you now in many things, no 
doubt, but she is very — ’’ 

Lovable ” was scratched out, and ‘‘ earn- 
est ” written instead. Margaret laughed a 
little bitterly, but in a moment her eye 
caught sight of a word on the last page 
of John’s letter, and all between was left 
unread : 

“Do you happen to know a friend of 
Mrs. Allen, a Dr. Felton? Mr. Wickham 
asked me to mention his name to you with 
the request that you tell him through me 
anything you may chance to know of this 
Dr. Felton. Mr. Wickham — as you per- 
haps know — still manages some of Mrs. 
Allen’s affairs here which were not satis- 
factorily settled before she left town. Dr. 
Felton seems to feel a great interest in her 
business, and has written several letters to 
Mr. Wickham. One of these Mr. Wickham 
showed me ; it seemed to me very simple and 
not particularly ^prying, but Mr. Wickham is 
too sharp a lawyer, as he says, not to suspect 
a motive. He fancies Felton may be a rela- 


182 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


live with designs on her will. He evidently 
wants to know how rich she is.” 

‘‘Nonsense!” murmured Margaret; “he 
is not the remotest connection of hers. 
Perhaps before he advised her to speculate, 
as he said he had done, he wants to know 
her resources ; that is easy enough explained. 
What other possible motive could he have?” 

That evening, as Margaret sat with Mrs. 
Allen in the latter’s room, she asked, 

“ Have you always known Dr. Felton ?” 

“Oh no; he was introduced to me just 
before I went to your town. He is a very 
genial man, isn’t he ? And he admires you 
greatly, Margaret. Only to-day he said you 
had the most mature mind for a girl of your 
age of any one he had ever met. He sup- 
posed you were my adopted daughter, and I 
did not tell him to the contrary,” said Mrs. 
Allen, with a glance at her companion. 

“ Well, I believe I did,” returned Mar- 
garet, indifferently. 

Mrs. Allen sat looking alternately at the 
grate-fire and then back to the young lady, 
who with her fancy-work sat under the 
light. Suddenly she exclaimed. 


DR. FELTON, AND OTHER TOPICS. 183 

‘‘ I wish you never would get married and 
never want to go away and leave me. It is 
so comfortable to have you to do for me.’’ 

Margaret laughed. 

‘‘Really, now,” said Mrs. Allen, like a 
willful child, “ I think you might promise. 
If I promise to adopt you and leave you my 
money, will you agree to stay with me while 
I live?” 

Margaret’s face flushed as, putting down 
her work, she said very decidedly, 

“ Oh no, Mrs. Allen ! You are very 
kind to me, and all that makes me willing 
to accept so much from you is the belief that 
you do And me useful, and not disagreeable. 
I will stay with you as long as we are con- 
tent with the arrangement — that may be a 
long time — but I can’t bind myself. Your 
proposal is like offering a bribe; it would 
seem so to each of us after a while. I might 
want to go free, or you might want to have 
me go.” 

“Maybe. You are very sensible, as Dr. 
Felton says, only he some way put it into 
my head to adopt you legally.” 

“ Am I not pretty well along in years for 


184 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


adoption?” laughed Margaret; and that 
ended the matter — at least, with them. Mrs. 
Allen did find herself afterward reporting 
the interview to the doctor, who for once did 
not dwell on Miss Edson’s good sense. She 
had, as he secretly reflected, missed a chance 
of money — perhaps of matrimony. It had 
not occurred to him that in making Marga- 
ret her heiress Mrs. Allen would require 
her to remain single. 

The next few weeks went rapidly past. 
The doctor continued his visits, and after 
each visit Margaret was conscious that he 
occupied a larger space in her thoughts. 
He was not, as she had been glad to 
know, an avowed Spiritualist. When, in 
his presence, Mrs. Allen would discuss, or 
attempt to discuss, the subject, he would 
turn her off with some allusion to the ‘‘ more 
things in heaven and earth ” than our phil- 
osophy can explain, even if it does “dream ” 
of them. 

Margaret had kept herself aloof from all 
seances and cultivated no acquaintance with 
the erratic women and the long-haired, wild- 
mannered men who often called at the house. 


DR. FELTON, AND OTHER TOPICS. 185 

She read to Mrs. Allen The Banner of 
Light without comment, and gradually that 
lady found that a person who showed neither 
interest in nor opposition to her opinions 
was not an inspiring listener. 

A few weehs after the interview last spoken 
of Dr. Felton remarked to Margaret that 
he really felt some dawning curiosity about 
Spiritualism, and that he was going to look 
into it from a professional point of view. 
He thereupon pleased Mrs. Allen greatly 
by borrowing her journal and listening to 
her rambling stories. He seemed most in- 
terested in hearing of the various mediums. 
She told him all about psychic healing ” 
and introduced him to certain clairvoyants 
and to developing, test and business “ me- 
diums,’’ spirit bands,” trance ” and in- 
spirational ” lecturers — in short, to “ cranks ” 
of all sorts. Every Thursday evening Mrs. 
Allen’s parlors were open to these people, but 
she never insisted on Margaret’s presence 
there. Occasionally a certain business me- 
dium ” called to see Mrs. Allen, especially after 
Dr. Felton became interested, and Margaret 
felt a great aversion to this Professor Kelley. 


186 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


She wondered at it, because he was very 
polite, rather intelligent and remarkably 
unobtrusive. 

Dr. Felton called him “ an odd genius.’’ 

‘^He certainly has the most singular in- 
sight into business matters. Miss Edson,” 
said the latter one day. ‘‘ He keeps in some 
way informed about the stock market, and 
his predictions are wonderfully near the 
truth every time. By the way, did you 
know that Mrs. Allen and I were speculat- 
ing? She trusted Kelley last week, and 
made a nice little sum ; I held back, and 
lost.” 

“ If I had more money than I was using, 
I would never risk it in Wall street,” said 
Margaret. 

“ Oh, that depends ! Mrs. Allen, now, 
has put in a few odd thousands, which may 
double ; if lost, they do not impoverish her. 
Kelley, to be sure, is leading her in deeper 
than seems to me just prudent, but the ex- 
citement is good for her. She was suffering 
from mental vacuity;” and the doctor laughed 
a little maliciously. 

‘‘ I hope the remedy you have employed 


DR. FELTON, AND OTHER TOPICS. 187 

will not produce vacuity in her purse,” said 
Margaret. 

They were idle words, but they caused the 
doctor to search the speaker's face with his 
sometimes keen eyes. They were very soft, 
pleasing eyes a moment after as he said in a 
lower tone, 

“ Miss Edson, I confess I am somewhat of 
a hypocrite. I do not come here so often to 
talk of stocks merely, or to investigate Spirit- 
ualism, or even to see Mrs. Allen, much as I 
esteem her amiable qualities. Perhaps you 
know why I am drawn here ? If I were a 
mind-reader myself, I would — ” He had 
laid his hand gently on Margaret’s, when a 
maid entered, thinking the library unoccu- 
pied. She withdrew, but only as Mrs. Allen 
entered. 

That evening Margaret sat until long after 
midnight debating with herself. Should she 
marry Dr. Felton if he asked her? She 
analyzed him critically with — as she sup- 
posed — an entire understanding of his char- 
acter. He was well bred, intellectual, a trifle 
conceited, but a man to whom people would 
always be deferential : that pleased her. 


188 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


She liked him and was flattered by his ad- 
miration. Of course he was able to support 
her handsomely. She could take care of 
herself if Mrs. Allen failed her for any 
reason, but she must work hard to be self- 
supporting. She felt very old and worldly- 
wise and quite superior to the average young 
woman, who too frequently lets her affections 
rule her common sense. All the same, she 
half decided to marry Dr. Felton. 

Margaret fell to fancying then what John 
would think, and next to thinking of John’s 
own character. John was little more than a 
boy ; Dr. Felton must be ten years older. 
Was that the reason that they looked on life 
so differently ? John was full of desires 
after everything higher and better than 
himself, eager to learn, to help, to win the 
approval of his conscience; she had never 
heard Dr. Felton express a desire to be any- 
thing he was not, to do anything to help 
anybody. He sneered at commonplace peo- 
ple — called them, often, the “ herd.” 

Suddenly Margaret recalled the old farm- 
house kitchen, seeing it as a picture in every 
homely detail — the breakfast-table standing, 


DR. FELTON, AND OTHER TOPICS. 189 

the pale-faced mother sitting by the fire, 
John waiting in his work-clothes, her father 
bent over the Bible reading the morning 
chapter. How common ’’ the old man 
in his rusty coat and with his toil-worn 
hands would look beside Dr. Felton ! She 
felt intuitively that only some motive of 
policy would make one thoughtful of the 
other, yet she loved and honored her father 
with a tenderness, a reverence, that made the 
younger man seem all at once the common 
one. She resolved to promise Dr. Felton 
nothing until she knew him better. It puz- 
zled her somewhat that her resolution was 
never tested : the doctor was very busy, and 
came to see Mrs. Allen less frequently than 
hitherto. 

One Sunday afternoon in April, Margaret 
sat with Mrs. Allen, who had been ill for a 
week or more. This day she had been 
propped up in an easy-chair and drawn to 
the window. Margaret had amused her for 
a half hour with reports of household affairs 
and city news, and was secretly wishing that 
the lady would fall asleep. There was a 
church next door, and, it being the hour for 


190 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


service, the bells began to ring and the peo- 
ple to gather. 

What do you suppose that minister will 
preach about?” asked Mrs. Allen, in her 
childish way. 

Oh, faith, perhaps.” 

Faith in what ?” 

‘‘ Well, in what he tells them, of course.” 

^‘And I just asked you what he would be 
likely to tell them.” 

“The last time I went anywhere to 
church,” said Margaret, “ the text was, ‘ Be 
ye courteous,^ and the sermon was on good 
breeding.” 

Mrs. Allen looked out on the brown steeple 
gracefully outlined against the spring sky, 
saying after a while, 

“ Sometimes I better like to think of the 
heaven my mother used to tell me about 
than of these spheres we hear about nowa- 
days. Do you believe in the Bible, Mar- 
garet ? 

“Yes.” 

“ But I never see you reading one.” 

“ I know a good deal of it ; I never like 
to read familiar things over and over.” 


DR. FELTON, AND OTHER TOPICS. 191 

‘‘No, I don’t, either; that is the way of 
books. But I have a pack of letters that 
my Lily wrote me when she was away at 
boarding-school ; I have read them until 
the paper hardly holds together, but I had 
a warm human love for her. That makes 
the dijfference.” 

Through Margaret’s mind went the 
thought, “ John would tell her that he 
read the Bible for just such reasons, but 
I don’t ; I can’t pretend I do.” 

“ Lily had the old-fashioned notions as 
much as any young girl has religious no- 
tions. They had prayer-meetings in her 
school, and she liked to attend them.” 

Margaret kept silence, so Mrs. Allen went 
on in a still more melancholy tone : 

“ I do wish, Margaret, that you would in- 
vestigate Spiritualism, so as to help me more ; 
you take hold of things, some way, more in- 
telligently than I do. Somehow, I don’t get 
the comfort out of it that I might. I don’t care 
enough, I suppose, for psychic law and literal 
thought and truth for the world, and all that. 
I’m getting positively tired of it. What I 
want is to know where my Lilian is and if 


192 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


she is happy. I never was intellectual, but 
you are, and you might find out something 
more tangible than I could. Some of the 
mediums tell me plainly that you are a 
positive hindrance to me — that you sur- 
round me with an atmosphere of unbelief 
through which hope and light cannot pene- 
trate.’’ 

“They either do me honor or they suggest 
that these ministering angels of theirs are 
pretty weak and feeble helpers if an indif- 
ferent mortal like me puts them all to 
rout.” 

“ Miss Celestia Hallam offered to come 
and live with me and establish uninter- 
rupted intercourse between me and the un- 
seen world,” said Mrs. Allen, who was too 
childishly simple to be offensive in her truth- 
telling. “ She said she could come in your 
place as well as not, but she is so untidy, 
and I have heard she takes morphine con- 
tinually. I would be so glad if you could 
find out for me something true and satis- 
factory.” 

The solemn tolling of the church-bell im- 
pressed Margaret strangely; or was it the 


DB. FELTON, AND OTHER TOPICS. 193 

feeble woman last words? . After a little 
pause she spoke more earnestly than before: 

‘‘Mrs. Allen, I tell you now what I never 
have said openly before. I see only non- 
sensical pretensions, wicked shams, artful 
playing on people’s most sacred memories 
and no grain of new truth ever produced 
in what you call Spiritualism. I don’t see 
any absurdities, any contradictions, but clear, 
reasonable revelations and positive promises, 
in Christianity — as it is preached, for in- 
stance, over in that church. Another thing: 
in the Bible and in the world one truth holds 
equally good : ‘ By their fruits ye shall know 
them.’ I have known genuine Christians in 
the closest relations. They are truthful and 
pure, and they love others actively, helping 
the poor, comforting the aged, the sick and 
the downtrodden ; they commend themselves 
and their beliefs without argument. I have 
seen Spiritualists. They are often tricky, 
untruthful ; one never agrees with another, 
and many are leading lives that I call im- 
pure. Many have divorced their own wives 
and husbands and taken others for no reason 
but inclination. They are not giving time, 

13 


194 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


thought or money to help their fellow-creat- 
ures in any way except to swell their ranks. 
Their fruits are not good. I speak now of 
those who openly advocate and teach their 
notions. There are a few deceived ones — a 
few, like you, hankering after something 
that they do not find, and never will find, 
in that folly. 

‘‘ Do you find something — everything — 
satisfying in your religion ?” 

“ I am not a fair example,” stammered 
Margaret. ‘‘My father, my mother and my 
brother I know found in Christianity all 
they asked.” 

“ But you are so engaged in cultivating 
yourself and learning everything that is 
worth learning ; why — why haven’t you 
tested it fully?” 

Margaret was silenced, but Mrs. Allen, 
who had no method in her questionings, 
suddenly asked, 

“Were you ever in the church next 
door ?” 

“ No.” 

“ I declare, I just wish I knew what the 
minister is going to say. Suppose you put 


DR. FELTON, AND OTHER TOPICS. 195 

on your hat and run over, so you can tell 
me 

Mrs. Allen’s freaks were manifold. Mar- 
garet obeyed without protest, and while the 
first hymn was being sung took her place 
once more, after long absence, in a house of 
God. The music was extremely fine and she 
enjoyed it heartily, thinking to herself, 

“ How little a few years ago I knew of 
what good music is ! Now I have only to 
express a wish to hear the finest musicians, 
and I can do so. What a queer whim of 
Mrs. Allen’s, sending me here as a reporter! 
That is the minister in the pulpit, of course ; 
not very forcible-looking. Oh how long he 
does pray I I have selected and trimmed 
two dresses since he began. It is a little 
odd that I never fall so easily into reveries 
on all sorts of subjects as I do in a church. 
— Well, he has come to the sermon at last. 
I have no idea that Mrs. Allen will ever re- 
member that she sent me here, or even ask 
for the text. — ‘ If a man thinketh himself to 
be something when he is nothing, he deceiv- 
eth himself.’ I know exactly how the sermon 
will go; I could go home this minute and 


196 


AFTEB THE FAILURE, 


make up a perfectly orthodox one for Mrs. 
Allen’s benefit. However, she might not be 
benefited, poor thing! She has not much 
opinion of herself; she was made a depend- 
ent, weak creature. Do I do wrong when I 
think I am something by contrast with such 
a character? I am something, and why pre- 
tend I am not? I am self-reliant. I have 
made considerable of myself in these two or 
three years. — What is he saying ? ‘ Every 

way of a man is right in his own eyes ; but 
the Lord pondereth the hearts.’ — He is end- 
ing now. Well, I am sure there is nothing 
I can tell to Mrs. Allen that she will find 
particularly edifying.” 

“Margaret,” called Mrs. Allen as she 
passed the door, “come in.” 

“ Why, how well you look ! Your cheeks 
are quite pink. Have you been asleep ?” 

“ No ; I had no chance. Professor Kelley 
came and insisted on seeing me. Mary 
helped me into a dress and down to the 
library, and I feel quite excited. Profes- 
sor Kelley says that I made three hundred 
Friday and a thousand Saturday — or that if 
he had sold out for me I would have cleared 


DR. FELTON, AND OTHER TOPICS. 197 

that. His insight is wonderful ; he predicted 
this a week ago.” 

“ I don’t like him ; don’t you trust him 
too far. Dr. Felton said he was drawing 
you ratlier deep into speculation.” 

‘‘ Oh no ; he has friends in the ring — 
whatever that is. He says that next week 
there is going to be a tremendous excitement 
in the market and our stock is bound to go 
up like a rocket.” 

That is all very nice, but you are too 
excited ; you will have a headache and lie 
awake all night. I don’t approve of Dr. 
Felton’s prescriptions, if this excitement is 
one result.” 

^^Well, I am going back to bed now. I 
am sure I don’t know why I should get 
very much excited. I am not specially fond 
of money ; I have enough, and no child to 
leave it to. I mean to give you a nice little 
sum if I get all Mr. Kelley says I shall. 
You are very faithful and patient with my 
whims.” 

All the while the little woman talked she 
was twitching at her garments so nervously 
that Margaret began to soothe her by calmly 


198 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


helping her, ringing for a cup of tea and 
talking of a less exciting topic. In a certain 
way she had grown fond of Mrs. Allen, who 
was not in the least ill-natured, but really 
affectionate and generous. From the first 
she had treated Margaret like an equal. 
When, at last, she was quiet, Margaret 
noticed with new solicitude how frail she 
was getting. Her hands were almost trans- 
parent, and the feverish flush in her hollow 
cheeks only made her seem more delicate. 
She gratefully received the little extra cares 
which Margaret bestowed on her, but asked 
nothing about the service which she had 
attended. 


CHAPTER XI. 

A FALS£: PROPHET. 

“ The earth has bubbles, as the water has, 

And these are of them.” 

Shakespeare. 

A S the spring advanced the weather be- 
came so unreasonably warm that Mrs. 
Allen drooped increasingly every day. She 
resolved, therefore, to leave the city earlier 
than usual, and in making her arrangements 
toward this end Margaret was kept busy 
and much in the street. She repeatedly 
missed Dr. Felton, who called during her 
absence, but that fact she did not altogether 
regret : a faint suspicion that the doctor was 
not actuated by the noblest of motives made 
her willing to keep out of the way of his 
too direct influence. She held firmly to her 
intention of knowing him better before she 
trusted him to the utmost. 

When doing Mrs. Allen’s errands, that 
lady’s carriage was always at her disposal; 

199 


200 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


but Margaret often preferred to walk, in 
order to see the not yet quite familiar city 
street-life. One afternoon, getting tired, she 
stepped into a Fourth Avenue car, and, un- 
observed by them, found herself close to 
Mr. Kelley and Dr. Felton. They were 
talking of stocks, and soon she heard Mrs. 
Allen’s name mentioned. Now, the jargon 
of Wall street was meaningless to Margaret, 
so she learned nothing from their conversa- 
tion — at least, nothing positive — but she 
received a very unpleasant impression. It 
is only in novels that villains reveal their 
plots in public and explain the details to 
amateur detectives. These gentlemen mere- 
ly laughed once rather consciously at some 
reference to Kelley as a “ prophet,” and then 
each seemed trying to prove that ‘‘it was 
perfectly legitimate — perfectly so “ an in- 
stance where things did not turn out accord- 
ing to expectations,” etc. 

That evening, after Margaret had been 
displaying some purchases, she asked, 

“ Are your stocks going up in that won- 
derful manner that you hoped for from Dr. 
Felton’s predictions?” 


A FALSE PROPHET. 


201 


‘‘ It was from Mr. Kelley’s predictions, 
though Dr. Felton buys and sells for me, as 
I never could deal with brokers. No ; I am 
just a little worried. I never meant to put 
in so much money, but, you see, in order to 
carry, as they call it, what stock I have 
already, I have to keep putting in more. 
How much I shall make depends on hold- 
ing what I have — or so they tell me.” 

“ How much have you in ? Five thou- 
sand dollars ?” asked Margaret, knowing 
that Mrs. Allen began with three thousand. 

“Well, upon my word I don’t know; I 
would not wonder if I had put in seventy- 
five thousand. But then Dr. Felton says 
that this minute, in real value, my stock 
represents twice that money.” 

“ You must be very rich, to risk so much.” 

“ No; my property has depreciated greatly. 
Mr. Wickham had told me that. I should 
not have risked anything very much if I 
had understood there was any risk; per- 
haps there is none.” 

“ T would write to Mr. Wickham, if I were 
you, and ask his opinion about these ven- 
tures.” 


202 


AFTER THE FAILURE, 


Oh, I could not explain it to save my 
life; Dr. Felton never can make me under- 
stand.’’ 

Margaret said no more, but she reflected 
that the Barton Bank failure had shaken 
her own faith in men to whom large funds 
were entrusted. 

In the week that followed nothing was 
seen of the doctor. Mr. Kelley called and 
greatly depressed Mrs. Allen by a harangue 
on “ lying spirits he declared that these 
unpleasant beings had of late made terrible 
confusion for him. 

“ Well, all I have to say to that,^^ broke 
out Margaret, vehemently, ‘‘is that in an- 
cient times, when God gave the law, the 
man or the woman who had, or pretended 
to have, dealings with such spirits — of such 
it was said, ‘ They shall surely be put to 
death,’ showing how God abhorred such do- 
ings ; and then, more, it was declared ‘ that 
the soul that turneth after such as have 
familiar spirits and after wizards, ... I 
will even set my face against that soul and 
will cut him off.’ ” 

“Oh, Margaret, how dreadful you are! 


A FALSE PROPHET. 


203 


I don’t want to be wicked ; I would believe 
the truth if I only knew it.” 

Well, Mrs. Allen,” said Margaret, more 
calmly, “ I haven’t the least idea that Mr. 
Kelley is any more of a wizard or a looker 
into the future than the next fraud. The 
world is full of frauds ;” and, turning away 
with all her knowledge of the Bible — for 
head-knowledge she had — Margaret, hav- 
ing given her stone to this mortal who w^is 
hungering for bread, went about her own 
affairs. Not three hours later she was sum- 
moned to the library to meet Dr. Felton on 
‘‘very important business.” She hastened 
down and found him pacing the room, ap- 
parently in great excitement : 

Do you read the papers ? Do you know 
the state of the stock-market yesterday and 
to-day ?” 

No.” 

Well, there has been an awful crash. 

Somebody started a rumor that X & Co. 

had failed ; on the heels of that came news 

of B ’s death. Stocks tumbled to the 

very lowest ; bottom fairly dropped out, I 
might say. I lost every cent I had put in.” 


204 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


There was something simulated in this ex- 
eitement, and Margaret knew it ; real excite- 
ment made Dr. Felton pale and collected. 
She felt what was coming. 

“ How can we ever tell that dear lady up 
stairs that all her bubbles have burst too ?” 

“ I don’t know, Dr. Felton. I don’t my- 
self understand why the gold, the United 
States bonds and the first mortgages which 
she possessed two months ago should be 
bubbles to-day.” 

“ Why, she risked, and she lost, the more 
is the pity !” 

You led her into it.” 

“ I beg pardon, my dear Miss Edson : I 
advised her to amuse herself with two or 
three thousand. She got bewitched ; then 
Kelley comes in with his supernatural and 
quite private information. Who could gain- 
say that? and the result is that poor Mrs. 
Allen has been just carried off her feet to 
the tune of a hundred thousand.” 

“ Had she much more ?” 

I hope so ; I have not the remotest idea. 
Now, after the first shock,” he continued, 
when Margaret stood silent, “if she is cu- 


A FALSE PROPHET. 


205 


rious to know how the money went, I will 
explain it all to her, though I doubt if she 
understands a word of it.” 

‘‘ Is it lost irrevocably ?” 

“As surely as if dropped into a crater — 
more surely, for then it might be blown out, 
like the philosopher’s old shoe. It was a 
philosopher, wasn’t it ?” 

The distress had slipped off the doctor’s 
visage, and his unguarded levity showed 
how little he really felt Mrs. Allen’s trouble. 

Margaret coldly remarked, 

“ Yes, I doubt myself if Mrs. Allen would 
understand; she is very guileless and as 
easily deceived as a child.” 

“ I pray you, don’t suggest that I wish to 
deceive her. Miss Edson.” 

“She will consult with her lawyer, Mr. 
Wickham, and with the one she employs 
here, and — ” 

“ I wish the law could bring her back her 
ducats, but, alas ! this is legitimate business. 
If one will hanker after hot chestnuts, one 
must risk burning the paw.” 

“ Is that figure so apt, then ? Kemember, 
the paw never went knowingly into the fire. 


206 AFTER THE FAILURE. 

and the poor cat was not the one who 
got the nuts/’ retorted Margaret, with a 
keenness that made the doctor start. How 
much she meant he could not tell, but that 
thrust ended their friendship. He stayed 
longer, went into elaborate and entirely 
plausible explanations with regard to the 
investments and the disastrous results, then 
left a quieting-powder for poor Mrs. Allen 
and bowed himself out of the library, and 
out of Margaret’s life for ever. 

Margaret went up stairs and as gently as 
possibly prepared Mrs. Allen for the informa- 
tion. That lady was exceedingly shocked, 
but more bewildered : 

‘‘ Of course, Margaret, my money has not 
just evaporated : it must be somewhere ; 
and, wherever it is, it belongs to me, because 
nobody has given me any value in exchange 
for it. If it is stealing, this stock-buying 
and selling, why that is one thing ; but they 
say it is ‘ perfectly legitimate.’ You send 
for Mr. Welton, my lawyer.” 

Mr. Welton had gone South, so Margaret 
wrote to Mr. Wickham, asking him to come 
and see where Mrs. Allen stood financially. 


CHAPTER XII. 

SABAH SET ASIDE. 

“ What seems so dark to thy dim sight 
May be a shadow, seen aright, 

Making some brightness doubly bright.” 

Adelaide Procter. 

M ay was exquisitely beautiful that year 
in the village. By the tenth all the 
apple-blossoms were out, the grass of Doris’s 
lawn was like green velvet, and, with every 
door and window open, her old house was 
delightful. The Grecian porch was the 
favorite meeting-place ; there, with easy- 
chairs, cushions, books and work, the family 
liked to collect. 

About sunset one warm evening, Doris, 
Miss Caxton, Harry Wickham and John 
Edson were playing croquet on the lawn 
and Mr. Wickham was resting in a big rus- 
tic chair; hearing a rustle behind him, he 
turned, and saw Sarah Mears training a vine 

207 


208 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


on new wire back and forth between two 
pillars. 

Don’t you want some help, Miss Mears?” 

‘‘ No, thanks ! I know how to do it myself 
better than I can direct any one else.” 

You are a famous manager, I admit. 
And, by the way, may I ask if you have 
ever regretted taking this establishment on 
your hands?” 

‘‘ Well, I can’t say I have, because it does 
seem as if the Lord had blessed everything 
that I put my hand to ; but I often think 
how little a thing would set me back. I just 
meet expenses ; that is about all. If 1 were 
not looking after every single thing myself, 
I would be all behindhand in a week. The 
girls I hire are nothing but hands; their 
heads are not worth a sixpence.” 

“ Far be it from me to say that you set 
too good a table,” laughed Mr. Wickham, 
^‘but such boarding-house keepers as you 
are never retire with independent fortunes.” 

“ I dare say not, but I never could endure 
‘ cheap-meat ’ economy.” 

Just then a merry uproar began on the 
croquet-ground, and John Edson declared 


SARAH SET ASIDE. 


209 


that Miss Caxton and he would have the 
‘‘ law ” on the contested point ; so Mr. Wick- 
ham, who liked croquet himself, left his 
paper and went down to join the group. 
Just how it happened nobody saw, but they 
heard a . loud groan, and turned quickly to 
see that Sarah Mears had fallen off the high 
porch, evidently hurting herself severely, 
for she could not move. The boys reached 
her first, and, with Mr. Wickham’s help, car- 
ried her into the house ; she was faint from 
pain, though no limbs seemed broken. It 
was soon apparent that the injury was chief- 
ly in the hip ; and when the nearest doctor 
had visited her, there remained no question 
but that she would be helpless for weeks to 
come. She suffered too much for a day or 
two to give more than a thought to house- 
hold matters. The kind-hearted, if rather 
ignorant, servants labored faithfully, and 
Doris, when at home, did all in her power 
to keep the machinery running. Doris was 
not, however, a lady of leisure any more ; 
three months before this. Miss Caxton had 
enlarged her Kindergarten borders and taken 
Doris as her assistant. It was not until 


11 


210 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


three o’clock each day that the young girl 
was at liberty from her school-duty. 

One morning, about a week after Sarah’s 
accident, Doris came into her room, which a 
maid had just put in a certain order. Doris 
rearranged the chairs, drew the curtain just 
right, dusted as Sarah herself would have 
done it, and after various little offices ex- 
claimed. 

Now, Sarah Mears, don’t you lie there 
and worry. The house is in perfect order, 
Susan does not let the bread burn, and 
everybody is lovely ; no complaints, except 
that we miss you.” 

“Yes, that is it. Miss Mears,” said Miss 
Dusenbury, appearing in the door, and add- 
ing, “ I am going down town ; can’t I do 
something for you ?” 

“Wait a minute, then, please, until I 
think. — Good-bye, Doris ; don’t hurry home 
from school on my account. — You can’t think 
how thoughtful that girl has become,” said 
Sarah to Miss Dusenbury. “ Two or three 
years ago she knew no more of household 
matters than a kitten : now she is very 
handy.” 


SARAH SET ASIDE, 


211 


“ Yes ; with her help in ordering things, 
you can’t need to worry over the house very 
much.” 

Sarah trusted Miss Dusenbury ; there were 
many points of resemblance in character be- 
tween the two women. Sarah looked at her 
with a peculiar expression as she answered, 

‘‘ I shall try not to worry, but the simple 
fact is that I seem face to face with a stone 
wall. I cannot, and will not, get into debt, 
but two months of the present state of things 
would plunge me deeply in it. I know you 
have no idea of the endless ways in which I 
avoid waste and save needless expense with- 
out any one thinking me stingy. I can not 
bother Doris with details that I have learned 
from years of housekeeping. It is the easiest 
thing in the world to let gas, fuel, kindling, 
butter, and dozens of otlier things, go with- 
out a thought; nobody but the one who pays 
will see any difference. I know how little 
leaks empty full purses. I never scrimp, 
but I take care.” 

Can’t you train the girls ?” 

“ With time I might, but I can’t afford the 
time — or, rather, the cost of the training. If 


212 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


some things were different, I would give up 
the house and go to relatives.” 

‘‘ Is there no capable housekeeper whom 
you could engage for a time who would take 
your place and act in your interests? No 
relative ?” 

‘‘ Not one. See, for example, the market- 
ing this last week. I told Bridget what to 
get, but certain things were scarce and others 
were plenty; she had no judgment, and the 
week’s expenses were almost double.” 

I wish I could help you, but I have not 
been to market for years.” 

I could not sleep all last night,” said 
Sarah. “ I could bear pain without a mur- 
mur, and I do try to — I suffer considerably, 
I assure you — but when I try to trust the 
Lord to sustain me, lam wicked enough to 
think, ‘ How can he in such little ways as 
Bridget’s buying wilted celery at a great 
price and Susan’s leaving a big can of 
peaches to spoil instead of putting them 
on the table ?’ If / am sustained, the waste 
goes on, and by and by debt.” 

“ Oh dear me, Sarah ! you are downright 
discouraged. Now, you take this verse and 


SARAH SET ASIDE. 


213 


go to sleep over it : ‘Be careful for nothing, 
but in everything by prayer ... let your 
requests be made known.’ Tell the Lord all 
about your trouble and all about Susan and 
Bridget, and you will just as surely get help 
some way as if you were enduring martyrdom 
in the Boman Colosseum. He is a present 
help in time of trouble ; remember that and 
take a nap.” 

“ I declare, the very way you say that com- 
forts me,” said Sarah, looking a good deal less 
disconsolate ; and somewhat later, when Mr. 
Wickham stopped for an encouraging word, 
she was quite cheerful even in telling him 
that she was troubled at the outlook. 

It was the same afternoon, when Doris 
came from the school, that she found the 
house unusually quiet and Sarah asleep. 
Sitting, then, in the porch, she fell to won- 
dering how long Sarah would be ill. Doris 
was keener-sighted than Miss Mears fancied. 

“ If I were only one of those story-book 
heroines, now, how I would develop! I 
would do everything Sarah has ever done 
and ‘add to it new grace.’ I would find 
time to teach all at the same time, and may- 


214 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


be start a mission of some sort. Poor 
Sarah ! how can I help her more ? I can 
get up early and go to market, for one thing ; 
if she gives me full instructions, I may do 
better than Bridget. Why, what brings 
Mr. Wickham so early in the day 

That gentleman was a little out of breath, 
and his wig was even more than usual awry. 
He stopped to rest in the porch, and ex- 
claimed, 

Doris, I am going to New York. You 
know, perhaps, that I have had some business 
relations with Mrs. Allen ; since she took Mar- 
garet Edson away I have felt somewhat more 
interest in her. Lately I have feared that she 
was putting her property into the power of 
sharpers. I was going this week to write 
her my fears and ask her to tell me what 
speculations she had been drawn into; I’m 
afraid it is too late. Here is a letter from 
Margaret Edson asking me to come on and 
look into matters ; she seems to think Mrs. 
Allen as incapable and as ignorant as — I 
should think she might be. It is a nice let- 
ter; I should say John’s sister is a very 
bright girl.” 


SABAH SET ASIDE. 


215 


“ Can I do anything to help you, Mr. 
Wickham? What time do you start?” 

“ At seven, and that will bring me into the 
city early in the morning. No, thank you ; 
there is nothing you can do but to send 
John Edson to me when he comes in.” 

John was naturally enough interested in 
the news, but he attached less importance to 
it than did Mr. Wickham, who kept his 
suspicions to himself while they were merely 
suspicions. At seven o’clock that gentleman 
bade them “ Good-bye” and was off. 

Early next morning Doris was up before 
any of the boarders ; carrying her basket, 
she started for market. At the gate she 
stopped to look up at a great apple tree 
white with its lovely blossoms. Birds were 
jubilant; the sky was blue, with a pink 
flush yet lingering in the east. Altogether, 
it was beautiful. John Edson thought the 
same, only to him an added beauty in the 
picture seemed Doris, with her fair face and 
her sweet brown eyes. Her dress was a 
blue print, but John thought it must be 
something unusually dainty, and in watch- 
ing her he slighted the little birds and apple- 


216 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


blossoms. It was not until she moved that 
he leaped over the garden -hedge with a 
basket as big as her own. 

‘‘Why — why, where are you going, John?” 

“ To market for Miss Mears.” 

“ Why, I am going there myself!” 

“ So much the better if you will let me 
go with you and balance myself with a 
basket each side.” He secured hers prompt- 
ly and went on gayly : “ Youth is always 
arrogant and inexperience is rash. You 
secretly believe that you can grapple with a 
grocer and carry off a carrot six farthings 
cheaper than Bridget O'Flarity. I know 
you will get swindled, and through you 
Sarah, /kept house — or one room of it — 
once. I went to market. I never was cheated 
in red herrings nor brought to shame over 
stale cucumbers. I, and I alone, am equal 
to this emergency.” 

“ Well, you are welcome if you are not 
modest,” laughed Doris, frankly ; “ I am 
glad to shift this burden.” Then they went 
chatting down the quiet street, in which 
scarcely any one was astir. 

“ I shall be very glad to hear from Mr. 


SABAH SET ASIDE. 


217 


Wickham all about Margaret if I can’t see 
her myself before I go to college ; I imagine 
from her letters she has changed. I wish 
Margaret and you were correspondents,” said 
John. 

I wish Margaret had liked me better,” 
returned Doris. 

‘‘Why, she could not help it,” was the 
illogical response, which was rapidly amend- 
ed : “I mean she had no possible reason for 
not being very friendly, only she was always 
reserved.” 

Doris had blushed, but she grew very 
grave as she said, 

“ I suppose, John, from what I have 
learned since that time — the bank failure — 
that your father’s loss was due to — ” 

“ Oh, let all that go. Miss Barton,” said 
John, catching sight of her face. “All that 
could never have the least possible effect on 
our relation as friends.” 

Doris knew that it had influenced his 
sister ; but when John went on telling her 
how the troubles of the. last few years had 
very likely been good for him, teaching him 
self-reliance and the value of his friends. 


218 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


she let the dismal past become forgotten. 
They were excellent friends, these two. 
Doris felt herself in some perfectly unde- 
finable way vastly more experienced — older, 
in fact — than the ‘‘ boy ” at her side. But 
John liked nothing better than to be patron- 
ized by her. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


BACK AGAIN. 

“ So links more subtle and more fine 
Bind every other soul to thine 
In one great brotherhood divine.” 

Adelaide Peocter. 

rpHE thing is just here, Miss Edson,’’ 
J- said Mr. Wickham as they sat together 
in Mrs. Allen\s library. I don’t suppose 
either of those men planned to fleece the 
poor woman out of all she had. Felton 
supposed her to be far richer than she was ; 
and when Kelley found her credulous, the 
temptation to use her money as a bait to 
catch a few fish for their own kettles was 
too strong. They claim they have lost their 
little all to ; possibly they have, but I doubt 
it. Nothing can be done, for Mrs. Allen 
gave them leave to buy and sell stock for 
her, she taking the risks. She has lost all 
she has save about — Well, from two to 

219 


220 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


five thousand dollars. This house is mort- 
gaged, and she must not keep up expenses 
here a day longer than she can help.’’ 

Margaret had risen in surprise : 

“Why, Mr. Wickham ! I never imagined 
anything so wholesale as that.” 

“ No, but it is true. And now the ques- 
tion is, What will she do ? She looks to me 
like a woman who has not many years to 
live.” 

“ I don’t think she has. After I lost faith 
in Dr. Felton’s integrity I began to doubt his 
skill, so I persuaded Mrs. Allen to call in a 
well-known physician near us. He told me 
that both her heart and her lungs were af- 
fected, and that an acute attack of any dis- 
ease would easily carry her off.” 

“ In that case the poor woman may have 
all she will need. You would do well to 
help her away to some quiet boarding-place 
with friends or relatives. I will tell her 
about how much she can have a week if 
she lives economically.” 

“ She has no idea of economy, of the value 
of money, or of anything practical.” 

Mr. Wickham leaned back in the tall 


BACK AGAIN. 


221 


leather chair, scanning Margaret curiously. 
It was so short a time since he saw her dust- 
ing Sarah Mears’s parlor and had thought 
her shy and angular ; now she had the quiet 
elegance of one who had been for years a 
woman of the world in the best sense of the 
term. In manner and in person she was ad- 
mirable ; what was she in character ? Would 
she turn away now from the weak creature to 
whom, in one way, she was not under much 
obligation ? He was glad to hear her say 
suddenly, with considerable vehemence. 

Let us explain to her that she has had 
losses and must retrench. If she does not 
ask for details, do not give them. She has 
been kind enough to want to adopt me ; now 
I propose to adopt her. Suppose we per- 
suade her to go back and board with Miss 
Mears? Sarah will never impose on her, 
and her means will keep her there perhaps 
as long as she lives. Then, as she is, and 
will be, an invalid, she will need care. Now, 
don’t you suppose Sarah will let me come 
and take her own place while she is laid 
aside ? You say she is worried with igno- 
rant girls.” 


222 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


Seeing the involuntary glance of Mr. 
Wickham at the delicate gown that she 
wore, Margaret said, 

“ Yes, I am wearing fine clothes and liv- 
ing at ease, but I have not forgotten how to 
sweep, dust, bake and go to market. I don^t 
say I would do it in preference to other 
things ; if I stood alone, I should probably 
look for a different position. But I am fond 
of Mrs. Allen, and grateful to her ; I want 
to stay with her for her own sake. I can’t 
very well support her, and she must not sup- 
port me; but by this arrangement we can be 
together. Besides, I owe something to Sarah 
Mears, and perhaps I can be of help to her 
now.” 

Blood tells,” said Mr. Wickham, emphat- 
ically. ‘‘Your father was a just man who 
never failed a friend or a foe — if he had one. 
I believe that you are doing the right thing, 
Margaret ; for this poor creature up stairs is 
sorely in need of a real friend.” 

“And as far as was in her she has been 
mine. Then you would advise me to write 
at once to Miss Mears ?” 

“At once, and I shall write her myself. 


BACK AGAIN. 


223 


How you will surprise them when they see • 
you, Margaret ! You have grown into a 
woman. Little Doris is several years be- 
hind you.” 

‘‘ If Sarah agrees, I will ask her to keep 
it a secret. John is to be there some time 
longer, and I want to surprise him,” said 
Margaret, in a more girlish way than usual. 
Mr. Wickham’s evident approval pleased 
her. 

In fact, when Margaret returned to her 
room, she was puzzled at her own mood. 
She was going to change this luxurious 
apartment, where she could sit hours at 
ease reading or resting, for the same little 
nook that she had once occupied over Miss 
Mears’s dining-room; it had a rag carpet and 
a pink calico bed-spread. She was going to 
put an end to long hours in art-galleries, in 
the Astor Library or in the Metropolitan 
Museum, and be a kind of Cinderella again ; 
but she was not unhappy when she thought 
of it. 

“ I suppose John will be glad/’ she 
mused ; he has begun to think I was grow- 
ing away from him. It is the best thing for 


224 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


• Mrs. Allen, and it will not be with me just 
as it was before.” 

What Margaret meant by that, but did 
not put into words, was that her proud spirit 
would now be less conscious of any inferior- 
ity to Doris and quite conscious of being 
the one to confer favor on — not to receive 
it from — Sarah. Again, some illusions had 
vanished. Her native common sense had, 
after experience, shown her that money, city 
life, travel, even culture, did not make one 
wholly content — that there were possibilities 
of more satisfaction in her old life than she 
had formerly recognized. 

Mr. Wickham stayed a week in New 
York ; and when he returned home, he was 
so indifferent and non-committal about Mrs. 
Allen and Margaret that Doris was puzzled 
and John was piqued. 

Margaret ? Oh, she is a very fine girl — 
quite improved and Mrs. Allen had '‘spec- 
ulated ” and " lost that was all. 

About this time Sarah Mears ceased to 
fret about the household affairs and planned 
some ambitious enterprises in the house-clean- 
ing line. Mr. Wickham had evidently been 


BACK AGAIN. 


225 


the one to put new courage into her, and 
Doris, little guessing why it was, teased her 
about the fact. But one day, when June 
was close at hand, Doris opened Sarah’s 
door and exclaimed, 

“ You are plotting mischief of some sort. 
For whom is the blue room being put in 
order ?” 

‘‘A secret that you shall have unfolded 
to-night.” 

Doris went away curious ; and when she 
returned from school, there was some one 
moving about in the blue room. 

Somewhat later, John Edson was going 
down from his own room to stay on the 
lawn until dinner, when there came a tap 
at his door. He opened it, and stared, as 
Margaret said afterward, with mouth wide 
open.” She had formerly been thin and 
sallow ; now her form was well rounded 
out and the faint color of her cheeks made 
her really handsome. The changes produced 
by tasteful dress were equally evident, if not 
so well understood by John. He could only 
stammer, Maggie !” when she put her 
arms around him and kissed him more 


15 


226 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


warmly than ever before; then she sat in 
his one chair, while he hung over the bed- 
board, and both talked fast. 

I am out and out delighted, Maggie ; I 
know you will not be sorry for this move. 
Sarah will appreciate it, and you for doing 
it. You will not be working any harder 
than many a lady works in her own house, 
and now you can enjoy everybody's society. 
It is a homelike place here.” 

‘‘Yes; I think P shall be entirely con- 
tented,” she replied, cheerfully. 

In the mirror over the washstand she saw 
her own face, and while she chatted with 
John an undercurrent of thought ran like 
this : 

“ I am young and not far from handsome ; 
I have learned what the world is like, and 
I feel equal to it. Every one must approve 
of my course in regard to Mrs. Allen. I 
don’t think any Christian could have acted 
more conscientiously than I have ; and now I 
meet Doris Barton on an equality, and she 
will have to admit it.” 

“ There is the dinner-bell. Have you 
seen Miss Mears yet, Maggie?” 


BACK AGAIN. 


227 


‘‘Yes, and I have been appointed her 
prime minister after to-day/’ 

“Distinguished guest you are to-night, 
then, I suppose? Well, come to dinner. 
Or must you go to Mrs. Allen?” 

“ No ; she is asleep,” replied Margaret, 
going down stairs. 

At the foot they were joined by Doris, who 
was almost as greatly surprised at Margaret’s 
arrival as John had been, and a good deal 
more impressed by her appearance. The 
two girls sat opposite each other at the table, 
and Doris could think only of one thing as 
Margaret talked wdth easy grace on any 
subject mentioned: once Doris’s mother had 
an awkward prickly cactus which the little 
girl despised ; one spring she returned from 
school to find it in the richest, rarest blos- 
som. 

After dinner, Margaret, finding that Mrs. 
Allen had awakened, did all she could 
to make this first evening pleasant, but, 
conscious that she could devote less time 
hereafter to the invalid, she tried delicately 
to make clear to her how she hoped to as- 
sume Sarah’s duties. 


228 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


Mrs. Allen was very gentle, and quick to 
catch her meaning. 

I am glad we came here, Margaret,’’ said 
she, “ for some way I trust these people. I 
have been thinking all day of that Mr. Kel- 
ley, now. If he would be so mistaken or de- 
ceitful about his Spiritual revelations when 
applied to money matters, how can I believe 
him in — Well, in purely spiritual affairs.” 

‘‘ You can’t ; he is a fraud, and I always 
said so.” 

‘‘ I know you did say it, repeatedly ; but I 
would like to — not lose faith in everything.” 

‘‘To-morrow,” said Maggie, “I mean to 
put you out on the lawn with a hammock 
or an easy-chair ; this June air — it will be 
June to-morrow — will do wonders for you.” 

“I hope it will. Now go and see your 
brother.” 

Before a week had gone by Margaret Ed- 
son was mistress of the situation. Sarah 
Mears could eat the dainty meals sent into 
her room with the easy reflection that order 
reigned in the kitchen whence they came. 
Energy and enthusiasm to serve animated 
the servants under Margaret’s rule. She 


BACK AGAIN. 


229 


had a positive genius for housekeeping,” 
as Mr. Wickham said, and she was never 
heated, fussy or untidy. In the parlor she 
outshone any lady in the house. 

Mrs. Allen soon found herself quite con- 
tent with her circumstances. It seemed to 
Margaret that she did not half realize the 
change in her fortunes. Indeed, she re- 
marked one day, 

‘‘A little more or less money makes no 
difference, as I see. I don’t want anything 
more than I have here, and I am not both- 
ered to be thinking of that New York house.” 

Now that Mrs. Mears and the rest under- 
stood Mrs. Allen better, they came to like 
her, and showed their sympathy in little 
attentions that pleased her. She had long 
leaned on Margaret for support and advice, 
but sometimes she had secretly wished that 
Margaret were not so cool and independent 
— so intellectual,” as she called her. 

One Sunday, a few weeks after her arrival, 
the house was so very quiet that Mrs. Allen 
fancied every one but Miss Mears had gone 
to church. It was such a lovely morning 
that she took a novel of the weak variety 


230 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


she sometimes read and wandered out into 
the grounds. About that time Doris put her 
head into the doorway of Miss Mears’s room 
and asked, 

‘‘How are you getting on, Sarah? Can 
I do anything for you V' 

“NotWg; Margaret provided for every 
emergency, even to my fainting away. I 
was to ring the bell for you before I did 
it. You did not feel well enough to go to 
church ?” 

“No, not until it was too late. I am all 
right now.’’ 

“ Don’t get to having Sunday sicknesses,” 
laughed Sarah ; then, in another tone, she 
said, “ Doris !” 

“ Well, Sarah ?” 

“ I don’t know whether or not Margaret 
is a Christian ; but if she is not, it is not 
for lack of light. One thing I see : she has 
never led that poor woman any nearer the 
truth. Don’t let us have her stay under 
this roof and be as ignorant of what we be- 
lieve as she was when she left us the last 
time. I can’t get up stairs where she is; 
couldn’t you give her a little help?” 


BACK AGAIN. 


231 


‘‘ How could I ? She is so much older 
than ir 

“ Well, Doris, I take it that if you were 
going a safe road to your future home, which 
you knew was going to be a beautiful place, 
and it could just as well be a home for any 
poor wanderer that you met on the way — 
I take it you would not see a woman stray 
off into darkness because she was older than 
you/’ 

‘‘But how can I help her, Sarah? I 
would like to do it.” 

“Ask the Lord how and look out for a 
chance.” 

Doris went slowly back through the wide 
hall. She was on her way to her own room 
again when she espied Mrs. Allen, and went, 
instead, out to her with a cheery salutation. 

Mrs. Allen dropped her novel and looked 
pleased when Doris flitted over to a little 
flower-bed and returned with a bunch of 
dewy roses for the invalid : 

“ When the sun shines on your hair. 
Miss Barton, it is just tlie golden tint of 
my Lilian’s; she would have been almost 
as tall as you now.” 


232 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


‘‘Will you not tell me about her, Mrs. 
Alien?’’ 

Perhaps because of frequent mention, Mar- 
garet could hear of the mourn ed-for child 
without apparent sympathy, but Doris was 
touched, and her eyes grew misty as the 
mother’s filled with tears. She showed her 
interest by many questions, and after a long 
talk, quite forgetful of any design to instruct 
Mrs. Allen, she said, 

“ For a long time after I lost my mother 
she seemed for ever lost to me; but after my 
father died and troubles came fast to me, I 
began to read my mother’s New Testament, 
and one chapter has come to mean very 
much to me. Whenever I read it, I know 
that I shall meet her in the mansion that 
Christ says is prepared for those who love 
him. She was so good and sweet, and ready 
to die. Do you remember that fourteenth 
chapter of John?” 

“ No ; I haven’t read the Bible much 
lately, it seemed so full of contradictions — 
or, rather, I have had so many pointed out 
to me,” sighed Mrs. Allen. 

“ How warm it is growing ! I believe 



GckI’s Messenger 


l>ag(' 2r^ 



BACK AGAIN. 


233 


I will run in and make some lemonade. 
Don’t you think it would be refreshing?” 
said Doris, rather inconsequently. However, 
when she had come back with a dainty glass 
and a pitcher of lemonade, she drew out of 
her pocket the book, and, nestling into a 
rustic chair, said, ‘‘We will be as good as 
if we had gone to church, will we not? 
I want to read you that chapter.” 

Doris’s voice was very sweet, and every 
word was eagerly listened to ; for ignorance 
far more than prejudice was the barrier be- 
tween Mrs. Allen and the gospel truth. 
When the reading ended, the latter said, 

“ What a satisfying sound that verse has ! 
— ‘ peace I leave with you.’ Only it seems to 
me the more we go searching into spiritual 
things, the less peace we have. It is all so 
uncertain !” 

“ I don’t know how that can be, Mrs. 
Allen,” said Doris, coloring, yet speaking 
with confidence. “ By spiritual things you 
mean a knowledge of God, who the Bible 
says is a Spirit, to be worshiped in spirit and 
in truth. Now, Jesus Christ says, ‘No man 
cometh to the Father but by me ;’ so the first 


234 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


thing would seem to be to learn all we can 
about the Saviour. There is nothing uncer- 
tain about his life or his teachings. Don’t 
you think the doubt and the bewilderment 
come in when we go to studying about all 
sorts of things not revealed, and so always 
unsatisfactory, letting go the simple truth 
that — that we can’t be satisfied in life with- 
out faith in Jesus Christ?” 

‘‘ Can’t we ?” asked the woman, in her 
most childish tone. 

I could not, and I never knew any one 
who could.” 

But many people not Christians are as 
contented as possible.” 

‘‘Are they hopeful under great trials or 
patient and gentle when not prosperous, and 
are they not afraid to die ?” asked Doris, add- 
ing, “ The really earnest Christians whom I 
know seem to have peace of this sort the 
Bible tells of.” 

“ I wish I had it,” said Mrs. Allen, with a 
thin hand pushing back a lock of gray hair. 

A thrill of joy akin to fear ran through 
Doris. Was there a soul on the great high- 
way of life actually waiting for her to point 


BACK AGAIN. 


235 


the way into the heavenly kingdom? Her 
voice trembled with feeling as she answered: 

“ Jesus said, ^ Come unto me, all ye that 
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give 
you rest,’ and we know the way to Jesus is 
to pray.” 

‘‘Do you know it? Is every word you 
have said real to you, or only good talk that 
you have been taught ?” 

“ Long after I was taught it, Mrs. Allen, 
it was ‘ good talk ’to me ; but when I lost 
my mother, my home, my father and after 
some troubles that were very bitter came to 
me, then I tested it, and now I know all I 
have told you is true.” 

“ Margaret believes the same, I suppose,” 
mused Mrs. Allen, “ but she never tried to 
tell me about it. Perhaps she is so self-re- 
liant she never needs help from outside; 
maybe she is equal to everything. She is 
not satisfied, either ; she is restless after 
some things— culture, for example.” 

Doris making no reply, Mrs. Allen leaned 
back in her easy-chair and seemed weary, but 
from that day she was strongly attracted to 
the young girl. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

ENTEBINO IN BY THE DOOB. 

“ Thou art the true peace of the heart ; thou art its only 
rest. Out of thee all things are full of trouble and unrest.” 
— Thomas a Kempis. 

T hat same Sunday noon Margaret Edson 
was conscious that several people scanned 
her curiously as she walked down the church 
steps with John, and homeward ; throughout 
the service she had also known perfectly 
well that the improvement in her personal 
appearance and the quiet elegance of her 
city-made apparel were not passing unnoted. 
She glanced once at John, and fitted him into 
her reflections after this fashion : 

‘‘ He has brains, and every one who knows 
him respects him. Now, there are two parts 
I can fill, and at the outset I must decide 
which. I never have had anything to do 
with what is called the best society of this 
place, but there is no reason why I may not 

236 


ENTERING IN BY THE DOOR. 


237 


have. Father and mother’s family record is 
stainless and the stock good on both sides. 
They were never beneath any one of the 
best men or women here ; they were merely 
outside of social life. Now, if I consider 
myself unworthy to get inside, outside I 
may stay. But outside I will not stay, if I 
am poor. Before the year comes around 
Judge Parker’s daughters shall be my 
friends — not because they are rich, but be- 
cause they are cultivated and intellectual 
girls. They have receptions and musical 
parties and belong to a literary club. Doris 
Barton has not a bit of worldly wisdom. I 
do not believe that in a town like this any 
one would have shut her out of all such 
things, but she has just settled herself to 
being a good girl and learning to teach a 
Kindergarten. How shall I begin? It is 
the first step that counts.” 

That question kept Margaret absorbed 
throughout the entire service. She wished 
to do nothing conspicuously aggressive, to 
risk no social repulses and to seem to have 
graciously conceded her what she most 
earnestly desired. As she walked home 


238 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


with John the way seemed to open plain 
before her : it was through the church ! 

That evening there was a pleasant little 
group gathered about the piano singing 
hymns. Doris had a clear, sweet voice ; 
Margaret, a strong, rich one well under her 
control, if not highly trained; while both 
John and Harry were passably good singers. 
They had sung only a few verses when the 
church-bells rang, but the elder people paid 
no attention to anything beyond the music. 
Mrs. Allen was there. Miss Dusenbury and 
Mr. Wickham. 

For several Sunday evenings Doris had 
gone to church with John, and for reasons 
that had held heretofore he supposed Mar- 
garet would find it more convenient to stay 
at home. He was agreeably surprised to 
hear the latter say, 

I believe I will begin and become a con- 
firmed church-goer after this.’’. She shut 
her hymn-book and went away to put on 
her hat. 

John turned to hear Miss Dusenbury 
playfully urging Harry to be her escort : he 
was not fond of church services. Doris, 


ENTERING IN BY THE DOOR. 


239 


who also intended to go, saw a sudden dis- 
appointment come over Mrs. Allen’s pale 
face, and heard her murmur, 

“ Oh dear ! I was hoping to hear you sing 
hymns all the evening.” 

‘‘ Stay at home with her,” whispered a 
voice in Doris’s heart. 

I would rather go along with John and 
Margaret; besides, it is wrong to neglect 
Sunday services,” she argued ; but the voice 
persisted : 

‘‘ ‘ I will have mercy and not sacrifice,’ 
Who knows that you might not sing a little 
gospel into the heart of this woman, so ‘igno- 
rant and out of the way ’ ?” 

Without heeding in the least how, Harry 
Wickham was watching her movements as 
he evaded Miss Dusenbury’s solicitations. 
Doris dropped back on the piano-stool, say- 
ing, 

“I think I will stay at home and sing 
right through the hymn-book.” 

“ Oh, do !” cried Mrs. Allen, quite eagerly. 

“ I consent,” said Harry, coolly, “ on con- 
dition that I warble likewise when ‘ I feel 
so dispoged,’ as Sarah — not Mears, but 


240 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


Gamp — would remark;’’ and he reseated 
himself, to John Edson’s secret dissatisfac- 
tion. 

I suppose,” said Margaret, a little later, 
as her brother opened the front gate for her 
— ‘‘I suppose that old Mr. Wickham sees 
Harry’s evident admiration for Doris, and 
approves. He always liked her very much.” 

don’t know. Do you think — Have 
you noticed anything?” John asked, a little 
too indifferently for entire naturalness. 

Oh, anybody can see the boy would like 
to dangle around her the most of the time 
if it were possible.” 

John did not say anything to that, and 
soon Margaret began to ask him all sorts 
of questions about the townspeople, show- 
ing .an interest in their movements that he 
scarcely understood. He found still more 
puzzling the conversation on their return 
from church — or, rather, his sister’s share in 
it. The sermon had been one John found 
very impressive ; it was from the text, ‘‘ Let 
him that glorieth glory in this, that he un- 
derstandeth and knoweth me, that I am the 
Lord which exercise loving-kindness, judg- 


ENTERING IN BY THE BOOR. 


241 


ment and righteousness in the earth ; for in 
these things I delight, saith the Lord/’ 

Why, you never wrote me that you had 
a new minister, John,’’ she exclaimed. “ I 
looked up expecting to see old Dr. Evans’s 
forefinger wagging like a pendulum, and 
behold this wild creature.” 

‘‘ ‘ Wild ’ !” echoed John. In what way 
can that adjective apply ? He is very log- 
ical.” 

He is wild, nevertheless. Five years in 
the city would make his hair smoother and 
his ideas more conventional. He is Western 
in his style.” 

John gave a suppressed laugh : 

So will I be, no doubt, in a few years 
after I have become a home missionary.” 

‘‘ You a home missionary ?” 

‘‘ Yes, probably.” 

‘‘ Oh, don’t, for pity’s sake ! Do stay 
East and be civilized. I can’t bear to think 
of you a meek, second-rate specimen of a 
man only heard of once in five years, and 
that through a begging letter telling some 
old woman’s society somewhere that your 
coat is dropping off your back and your 
16 


242 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


wife would wear a calico dress and a pair of 
of five and a half shoes if Christian friends 
would provide — ’’ 

If you think that moves me, Maggie, 
you don’t know me. When I shirk or when 
I beg, you can despise me ; but mere poverty 
is not the worst thing on earth.” 

‘“Mere poverty’! Well, we never were 
alike, John. And that reminds me of some- 
thing I have been thinking of to-day.” She 
hesitated, as if waiting to be questioned, then 
went on with some embarrassment: “You 
are naturally more conscientious, more spirit- 
ually-minded, and perhaps more emotional, 
than I am ; it must have been easy for you 
to be religious.” For a second or two she 
seemed in doubt how to proceed. “ Now, I 
had the same religious instruction, and — 
and — Well, I am as orthodox in my beliefs 
as you are, no doubt.” 

“Yes,” assented John, vaguely, wishing 
to help her out — with what, he could not 
divine. 

“ 1 have concluded it is time that I made 
some kind of a profession of what — Of 
which side I am on. I think I will join 


ENTERING IN BY THE DOOR. 


243 


the church here at the next communion 
season/’ 

It was a full moment before John stam- 
mered out something about being very glad 
to have her do so, but he was completely 
astonished. Nothing in Margaret’s life, con- 
duct or confidences had led up to any such 
result as this — or, at least, so it seemed to 
him. Then he reproached himself with 
being very dull and unbelieving. Marga- 
ret was indeed unlike him ; her own serious 
thoughts and spiritual experiences would 
never be matters of converse with him, or 
with any one else, unless she changed great- 
ly. Even this much said must have cost 
her a great effort — or so he reasoned. 

“I don’t mean you to think, John, that 
I have experienced any sudden change or — 
or anything remarkable; I don’t think I am 
impulsive.” 

‘‘But of course, Maggie, you know that 
you are a Christian.” 

“ I know, John, that I am sincere and* 
Maggie honestly thought that she was. She 
meant to build according to her new plan at 
once, and you know, reader, that the house 


244 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


that was built on the sand was just as much 
of a house as the one built on the rock. 
There might not have been a stone’s differ- 
ence in the look of the two ; it was a house, 
only it was without foundation, and on that 
account it fell when the test came, 

Mrs. Allen turned to Doris as soon as the 
brother and the sister had gone, saying, 

“ I wish. Miss Barton, you would sing a 
while longer, if you are not tired.” 

‘^No, I am not; I enjoy singing.” 

‘‘So do I,” added Harry Wickham, pre- 
paring to turn the hymn-book leaves for Do- 
ris ; but his prosaic uncle dryly remarked, 

“ Then you go out and practice with the 
bullfrogs. Mrs. Allen and I prefer a solo 
to-night.” 

Harry good-naturedly subsided into a cor- 
ner. 

Mrs. Allen begged to have no light but 
the moonlight, and so for more than an hour 
Doris’s sweet voice filled the air with sweeter 
words of prayer and praise. Sarah Mears 
heard it as she rested on her couch, and felt 
it helpful as any hour of church-going. Mr. 


ENTERING IN BY THE DOOR. 245 

Wickham, sitting where the spicy air of the 
flower-garden floated in at the window, re- 
called, as he loved to do, long-ago days, 
mother-love and mother-lore. To Mrs. Al- 
len it was all fresh ; each unfamiliar hymn 
seemed truly to be made all of wonderful 
words of light.’’ If it was a light for her 
just then, only as faint and elusive as the 
shadowy moonlight through the curtain, yet 
it was pleasant and fllled her with longing. 
She was sorry to have the Edsons return and 
the pleasant exercise end; but when she 
rose to go to her room, she found herself so 
fatigued that Margaret went with her. 

‘‘ What did your minister preach about ?” 
asked Mrs. Allen, in that childish way of 
hers, which really irritated Margaret to- 
night. 

‘‘As if I could condense a sermon into a 
sentence and have her understand it !” she 
thought. “Sometimes she talks just to ask 
foolish or tiresome questions, it seems to 
me.” 

“Yes, I will go right to bed; I am so 
tired that I tremble. What did he talk 
about, Margaret?” 


246 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


Oh, judgment and righteousness. Now, 
you had better begin taking iron to-morrow ; 
I will get you some.” 

‘ Judgment and righteousness ’ ? God’s 
judgment of everybody not found right- 
eous at last, I suppose ?” she sighed ; adding, 
‘‘ Sometimes you would think religious peo- 
ple’s belief was simple and satisfactory, and 
then again it means such dreadful things as 
our being judged and everlastingly burned 
for not being perfect. Oh dear ! it is all a 
mystery !” 

Something in that sigh penetrated even 
Margaret’s moral stupor; she cast around 
for a reply that should be suitable, and 
finally said, 

I remember old Dr. Evans, who preached 
in the brick church, used to be always say- 
ing, ‘ The scheme of salvation is easily com- 
prehended.’ ” 

Only one word caught Mrs. Allen’s ear, 
and she answered wearily, 

“ I don’t like schemes.” 

Margaret helped her undress, brought her 
fresh water and bade her Good-night.” 
She was not hard-hearted ; she certainly 


ENTERING IN BY THE DOOR. 


247 


would have lingered with the pale-faced lit- 
tle woman had she known that Mrs. Allen 
was going to lie awake crying silently 
like a hopeless child. Not a tear fell for 
the thousands she had lost — money was 
nothing to her — but she was lonely ; “out 
of the way,” yet wandering not willfully in 
the dark ; above all, longing greatly for 
some love, divine or human, vainly think- 
ing all would be bright if she might only 
hold once more to her breast the fair child’s 
form now mouldering in the grave. 

An hour went by, but it was still not at 
all late when Doris, forgetful that Mrs. Al- 
len had gone to bed, began to sing across the 
hall to herself: 

“ There is a green hill far away, 

Without a city wall, 

Where the dear Lord was crucified 
Who died to save us all.” 

Then she sang the chorus so softly that 
Mrs. Allen did not hear it all, but in the 
woman’s eye — her mind’s eye — she saw that 
scene as vividly as any Komanist kneeling 
before a visible representation ever saw the 
Christ on Calvary. 


248 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


“We may not know, we cannot tell, 

What pains he had to bear. 

But we believe it was for us 
He hung and suffered there.” 

A little time of silence, then the soft voice 
again : 

“ He died that we might be forgiven. 

He died to make us good.” 

Were ever words simpler? And for just 
such words was this listener heart-hungry. 
She raised herself on her arm to hear the 
rest, catching only, 

“And trust in his redeeming blood.” 

Of course, not being a pagan, she had heard 
the purport of the hymn long before, when 
she had cared little whether Christian doc- 
trine was easy or hard of comprehension. 
Even an hour before this the ‘‘ scheme of 
salvation,” as Margaret quoted the phrase, 
was only a phrase. Something now very 
different was coming into her mind, for once 
again was it being proved that Christ’s own 
blessed words are wonderfully true : ‘‘ I, if I 
be lifted up from the earth, will draw all 
men unto me.” 


ENTERING IN BY THE BOOB. 


249 


It must have been an hour after the sing- 
ing ceased and the house was still that Mrs. 
Allen knelt by the bed, from which she had 
risen — praying at last, after years of folly and 
emptiness. It would have been touching 
could any one have heard her confess it all, 
casting away from her for ever the delusions 
that had brought her no peace, asking like a 
child to be forgiven, taught and made good 
for Jesus’ sake; then, falling back on the 
bed, her head had scarcely touched the 
pillow before she was asleep. 


CHAPTEK XY. 

THE CHURCH-SOCIABLE. 

“ Nature referreth all things to herself, striveth and argueth 
for herself. Grace bringeth back all to God.” — Thomas 1 
Kempis. 

T here was no hypocrisy about Margaret 
Edson ; she had not the least idea of 
entering what she considered the best society 
under false pretences. She knew herself to 
be in mind and manner the equal of — Well, 
‘‘ Judge Parker’s daughters this, indeed, 
she was, and, once in society, that fact would 
be tacitly conceded. Nevertheless, circum- 
stances touching in slight degree her own 
merit paved the way to Margaret’s social 
success. Little as she thought of Mrs. 
Allen’s influence, but for her she would 
long have been to the townsfolk just “Amos 
Edson ’s girl,” who had gone to live with 
Sai*ah Mears; but when Mrs. Allen took 
her away and kept her, people questioned, 
260 


TffE CHURCH-SOCIABLE. 


251 


gossiped and surmised, finally agreeing that 
Margaret was a girl of promise and deserved 
to get on in the world. They heard that 
Mrs. Allen treated her like a daughter ; they 
now saw that she had returned greatly im- 
proved in all visible respects. Just how 
true the rumors of Mrs. Allen’s losses were 
or how far they affected Margaret’s prospects 
nobody knew or cared; Margaret was no ad- 
venturess. There is a kind of loyalty to old 
inhabitants and their children as common in 
villages as it is unknown to cities. 

For a month or two one might have said 
Margaret made no progress, but at the end 
of that time scarcely a regular attendant at 
the brick church had failed to notice and to 
approve this attractive young lady. The 
leader of the singing at the weekly prayer- 
meeting began to consult her about the 
hymns. She had gone into Judge Parker’s 
Bible class and impressed him very favor- 
ably. She studied her lessons as she would 
have studied events in secular history — with 
encyclopaedias and books of reference; so on 
Sunday, without being at all pedantic, she 
appeared very bright and interesting. Doris, 


252 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


who belonged in the same class, admired 
Margaret more every day, while she seemed 
really to know her less. She had not sup- 
posed her to be religiously inclined, yet Mrs. 
Adams, the president of the woman’s mis- 
sionary society, told Miss Dusenbury that 
she foresaw that Miss Edson ‘‘was going 
to be invaluable in the active work of the 
church.” 

One beautiful afternoon in midsummer 
the “church-sociable” — which was usually 
a very pleasant affair — met at this same 
Mrs. Adams’s house. The lady was the 
wife of one of the leading men in the 
church, and was herself a person of influ- 
ence. About five o’clock the four young 
people from Miss Mears’s set out for Mrs. 
Adams’s handsome residence, which was in 
the finest part of the town. It was John 
and Harry’s “ first time,” as they remarked, 
John adding, 

“ I have often meant to go, but I could 
not find time.” 

“And I fancied they Avere awfully slow — 
these sociables — as very likely they may be ; 
and if so. Miss Edson, I shall blame you 


THE CHURCH-SOCIABLE. 


253 


for deceiving me/’ said Harry. ‘Hf some 
old lady gives me a bit of patchwork for 
the Hindus, shall I have to sew whether 
or no?” 

Nonsense, Harry ! All they require of 
you is a ten-cent piece. If you drop that 
into the treasurer’s box, you may wander on 
the lawn, talk to the girls and have your 
supper.” 

‘‘ How generous ! I will go again.” 

‘‘There is Mr. Floyd at the gate now,” 
said John, adding, in a lower tone, to Mar- 
garet, “He told me yesterday that he was 
coming to call on you soon. He has heard 
that you intend to join the church.” 

“ He need not take that trouble ; it would 
be disagreeable for me to have to be cate- 
chised on my feelings and my experiences. 
I have examined the creed of the Church, 
and I agree to it. Mr. Floyd need not make 
any perfunctory pastoral call on me ; if he 
does, I will escape and let Miss Mears have 
it; no doubt she likes that sort of thing.” 

They were at the gate now, and John 
could not respond. 

The wide piazza of the pretty house was 


254 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


filled with ladies industriously sewing, and 
as busily chatting. Young people and chil- 
dren were all about the grounds, and evi- 
dently this style of sociable was thoroughly 
enjoyed. 

Doris was taken captive by a crowd of 
children who had known her in the Kinder- 
garten ; the young men gathered in the li- 
brary, where John lingered, while Margaret 
joined the elder ladies and offered to sew. 

“ No, Miss Edson ; we will thank you very 
much to do something else for us. I have 
here a letter from the home missionary to 
whom we sent a box not long ago ; I have 
mislaid my glasses, and can’t read without 
them. Will you not please read us this 
while we sew?” 

It was Mrs. Adams who spoke, and Mar- 
garet at once complied. She was an excel- 
lent reader, and the earnest, manly letter 
lost nothing of its interest. 

After that there was a lively discussion 
of ways and means. Certain members 
wanted entertainments whereby they might 
raise more funds for mission purposes ; oth- 
ers thought such measures objectionable. 


THE CHURCH-SOCIABLE. 


255 


Margaret was once or twice appealed to in 
regard to church societies in New York ; she 
was able to give quite lucid and suggestive 
answers, for she forgot nothing she had ever 
heard discussed. She did not tell how sel- 
dom she had darkened a church door in the 
last year or two ; just now Margaret felt her- 
self accountable to no human being. 

About six o’clock little tables began to 
appear, and maids with dainty plates and 
napkins. The ladies gathered in groups of 
four or six, and Margaret was about to go 
in quest of Doris as her Companion, when 
a dark-eyed, graceful girl drew her arm 
through her own, saying, 

“ I think we ought to be a little better 
acquainted. Will you not sit here with 
me? It is a charming little nook.” 

It was just that, for the west end of the 
piazza overlooked great beds of flowers in 
bloom, a pretty, pattering fountain and a 
summer-house now overflowing with young 
girls. But Margaret’s pleasure came from 
the fact that it was Eleanor Parker who had 
made this advance to her — the judge’s most 
elegant daughter, just home from Vassar Col- 


256 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


lege. But there was no apparent condescen- 
sion on one side and no toadyism on the other. 
They talked of New York shops, of picture- 
galleries, of magazine serials, of the count- 
less topics dear to girls, and were mutually 
pleased. After supper they walked about 
the grounds, and before they parted Eleanor 
had planned a meeting between them twice 
a week for a course of art-readings. Mar- 
garet was to come to Judge Parker’s house, 
because there were photographs of European 
paintings and the books most available. 

Eleanor had just left her with a warm 
hand-pressure, and Margaret had turned to 
look at a colored photograph, when she saw 
Mr. Floyd approaching. 

“ I have been looking at that picture. 
Miss Edson ; it gives one a very good idea 
of the exterior of St. Mark’s. What a gor- 
geously dingy old place that is, if one may 
use such contradictory words ! I never 
can forget my first impression on entering ; 
for at least a minute I thought of a black- 
smith-shop in a palace.” 

Then you have traveled,” thought Mar- 
garet. ‘‘I should have said you had been 


THE CHURCH-SOCIABLE. 


257 


up in Wisconsin and had never been off a 
prairie until you came here/’ What she 
said was something about the picture. 

They talked of the photographs a short 
time, and then Mr. Floyd said, 

‘‘ Your brother tells me you have been 
living in New York for some years?” 

‘‘ Yes.” 

What church were you in the habit of 
attending there ?” he asked, adding, “ One 
has a choice of fine preachers.” 

“I was not very regular in my church- 
going.” 

“Ah ! You have only lately become a 
Christian ?” 

The tone was interrogative, but Margaret 
made no reply until she was aware that his 
searching eyes were turned full on her ; then 
she said, 

“ I cannot claim that I have all at once 
become anything or experienced any change 
of a religious sort. I am not very emotional, 
but I am convinced of the truth.” 

“ Of what truth ?” he asked, with a gentle 
directness not easily evaded. 

“ Why, the truth of the Bible, the claims 

17 


258 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


of religion on individuals/’ returned Marga- 
ret, whose religious education had supplied 
her with plenty of apt phrases. 

Mr. Floyd detected the quite involuntary 
haughtiness with which she lifted her hand- 
some head, yet he went on as simply as if 
talking of the picture he still held : 

‘‘ Yes ; what we feel is, after all, very little 
to the point. Speech-making, banner-waving 
patriotism is cheap the world over ; it is the 
enlisting and then the long hard marches 
that prove the soldier’s metal — that even 
more than the fight under excitement.” He 
paused long enough to give Margaret a com- 
fortable assurance, as she fancied, that the 
conversation was not to be personal ; then 
he said, “As you are thinking of joining us 
in the church — of which I am very glad — 
and as you are doing so after deliberate re- 
flection, I want to ask you a question. Miss 
Edson : What does church-membership mean 
to you ? What does it stand for?” 

“ I do not think I can put into a few words 
what I understand by it,” returned Margaret, 
reddening with annoyance. 

Philip Floyd knew human nature. He 


THE CHURCH-SOCIABLE. 


259 


had seen many a sincere young Christian 
dumb with embarrassment or stammering out 
some awkward speech in reply to a pastor’s in- 
quiry, but he was sure Margaret Edson was not 
timid nor lacking in perfect self-possession. 

Yes, a few words are scarcely enough to 
cover what comes to mean everything that 
pertains to our heart-life and the manifesta- 
tion of that life before men.” He waited to 
see if she would add a word, but she did not; 
instead, she glanced furtively around in 
search of Doris, John, or even Harry 
Wickham. ‘‘ You say,” he repeated, that 
you come into the church because you are 
convinced of the truth of the Bible; all 
well if with the heart you are believing 
unto righteousness. And we are told we 
shall know of the doctrines of Christ if we 
do his will ; mere head-knowledge avails 
nothing. -'The claims of religion,’ you say. 
Yes, ‘ pure religion and undefiled before God 
and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless 
and widows in their affliction and to keep 
himself unspotted from the worlds To fill 
that last claim we do indeed need all the 
help and inspiration of Christian sympathy 


260 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


and fellowship, as well as abundant wisdom 
from above. Yes, Miss Edson, the church 
needs you ; only come to us with the true ideal 
of Christian life. Kesolve never to be content 
until you can say, ‘ For me to live is Christ 
and to die is gain.’ Here comes your brother 
looking for you. We are going to miss him 
greatly. Good-night.” He took her hand, 
gave her an earnest, kindly look and turned 
away, but Margaret said to herself, ‘‘ He has 
weighed me and found me some way want- 
ing. I don’t care ; I am not bound to make 
him my father-confessor.” She was not at 
all lively on the way home, taking little part 
in the conversation. 

It was a clear, bright evening and but just 
past nine when they they came in sight of 
Doris’s house. 

‘‘There is Miss Dusenbury swinging on 
the gate,” laughed Harry Wickham, “or 
she looks as if she had been doing it. Now 
she is coming to meet us.” 

“ She is hurrying,” said Doris, in another 
tone. “ I hope nothing has happened.” 

John quickened his pace, and to him Miss 
Dusenbury exclaimed, 


THE CHURCH-SOCIABLE. 


261 


Mrs. Allen is not well and wishes that 
you would go for a doctor. It is nothing 
alarming, perhaps; I think she is rather 
nervous.’’ 

John turned back at once, while Margaret 
hurried into the house. Mrs. Allen was 
very glad to see her, and after Margaret had 
rearranged the bed, bathed her head and 
fussed over her a little she began to wish 
that she had not sent for any doctor. How- 
ever, in a short time the doctor arrived, and 
made, as Margaret thought, an unnecessarily 
long call. He gave express orders that Mrs. 
Allen should avoid getting over-tired or 
excited, left two or three kinds of medicine 
and said he would drop in again in a day or 
two. 

Margaret followed him to the piazza, say- 

“ She has heart disease, has she not ?” 

Yes ; if she has any business to attend 
to, have it done at once. She may live 
years — may go out to-morrow like a candle 
in a puff of wind. Tell Wickham so if he 
is her lawyer. Gentle little woman, isn’t 
she? and they say a good friend to you, 


262 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


Margaret Edson. Bless my soul, Margaret ! 
how you have blossomed out, or ‘ handsomed 
up,^ as the country-folks would say ! Good- 
night and with a laugh Dr. Hughes went 
down the steps. 

Margaret looked after him, thinking of 
the times he had visited her father and her 
mother; then she returned to Mrs. Allen’s 
room and made a resting-place for the night 
on a sofa, where she could be near if any- 
thing was wanted. She stayed awake a 
long time thinking pleasantly of her plans 
with Eleanor Parker, giving some thoughts 
not so agreeable to Mr. Floyd. She sup- 
posed that Mrs. Allen was asleep, when that 
lady suddenly spoke out in the darkness : 

‘‘Margaret, I want to see Mr. Floyd in 
the morning.” 

“ Mr. Floyd ?” 

“ Yes ; and you need not think it is because 
I am afraid of dying right away that I send 
for him and for a doctor. It is the rest of 
my living that I wish to settle about. I want 
to be a Christian, Margaret. Ever since 
Doris Barton read that chapter to me one 
Sunday and sang those gospel hymns I have 


THE CHURCH-SOCIABLE. 


263 


understood it all as I never did understand 
before. I began to pray that very day, and 
I do believe my sins are forgiven. If the 
minister thinks I am not too ignorant, I 
want to join the church and be counted in 
with those that love the Saviour. I have 
been such a fool, you know, Margaret, and 
have been known as a Spiritualist, that may- 
be he will not have any faith in me — the 
minister, I mean.” 

Margaret sat erect on the sofa, more 
moved than she realized, and greatly sur- 
prised : 

“ How do you know that you are a Chris- 
tian ? Did you know it all at once ?” 

‘‘ I don’t know what I am, Margaret, but 
I know that when I was too lonely to live 
and had no hope in death, and was sick of 
myself and all I ever had been and done, 
then I just prayed with all my heart for 
help, and I got it. I have not felt like the 
same creature since. I believe it all now. 
It was easy when it came to me, after all.” 

“ I have been thinking I would join the 
church myself,” said Margaret, hesitantly. 

Oh, I am so glad ! Then you will read 


264 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


the Bible to me? I never dreamed it was 
so beautiful as I see it is. Why, the Spirit- 
ualists tell us it is, in part, a bad book and 
must be expurgated. The queer thing is 
that almost every one of them has the ob- 
jectionable part which they read and talk 
about, and what they call the better part 
they let alone and seldom own. To-day I 
read and read, and it grew so wonderful to 
me ! But, Margaret, when did you begin to 
pray ?” 

For the next few moments it seemed a 
physical impossibility for Margaret Edson 
to utter a word ; that natural question, 
asked by the feeble woman whose mental 
capacity she thought so meanly of, pierced 
through her independence like a sword- 
thrust. ‘‘ Pray ” ! It was the one thing 
she had not done. She had reasoned that 
she had done wrong, being mortal; that it 
was desirable to do right. She had made 
good resolutions, was preparing to attend 
church, give to missions, act like a consist- 
ent church-member. She had not neglected 
to say the Lord’s Prayer almost daily. 
“ But, Margaret, when did you begin to 


THE CHUECH-SOCIABLE. 


265 


pray?” Of course by that Mrs. Allen 
meant all that prayer had suddenly become 
to her, and Mrs. Allen had been converted ; 
Margaret had not even then any doubt of 
that fact. 

Conscious that the question awaited an 
answer, yet unable to give one, Margaret 
said in a constrained voice, 

“I am very glad, Mrs. Allen, that you 
have been converted.” 

“ Have I ? Is that what you say ? Con- 
verted? Changed? Yes, it is a change. 
You call it a new heart, don’t you, sometimes? 
I like that. It does seem exactly as if God 
had taken away my old dull, aching heart 
and put in me one full of peace and thank- 
fulness.” 

Margaret did not respond. It was in- 
credible that the woman she had regarded as 
so far below her intellectually — yes, and in 
a knowledge of spiritual things as well — that 
she should be talking thus to her. She 
remained awake long past midnight; then 
she tried to repeat the Lord’s Prayer : ‘‘ Our 
Father which art in heaven.” A doubt grew 
in her mind if she recognized God as her 


266 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


Father by any responsive love. “ Thy will 
be done.’’ Did she want it done if it meant 
scores of things that she could imagine — 
sickness, poverty, social neglect, John’s 
death ? No, no ! She wanted her own will, 
and nothing to do with God’s will. In the 
dark she acknowledged it alone with her 
conscience. In the dark, literally and figu- 
ratively, she confessed that she was not a 
Christian and did not sincerely wish to be 
one. She was not fit to join the church, 
and would not. She never really had prayed, 
and could not. 

At last Margaret Edson had defined her 
position. 


CHAPTER XVI 

MARGARET CHANGES HER MIND. 

“ Who fastest walks, but walks astray, 

Is only farthest from his way.” 

Prior. 

D OE-IS barton had become so light- 
hearted that it was a pleasure to see her 
beaming face or to hear the snatches of song 
she was always singing as she tripped about 
the house. She was very full of business, 
too, for Miss Caxton had departed never to 
return, and in a month or six weeks Doris 
was to be at the head of the flourishing 
Kindergarten, whose management she now 
thoroughly understood. She was planning 
during this vacation to make her pleasant 
schoolrooms yet more attractive, and every 
day she sat by Sarah Mears’s easy-chair and 
talked ways and means like a very shrewd 
little schemer. A warm-hearted, strong- 
principled Christian girl was Doris, who had 

267 


268 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


developed much gentleness with strength in 
the last two or three years. There was, how- 
ever, a guileless, childlike element in her 
character that Sarah Hears well understood ; 
sometimes she had to talk to Doris as if she 
had been a much younger girl. 

One afternoon the latter danced into 
Sarah’s room in the gayest mood, to ex- 
claim, 

“ Only think, Sarah Hears ! I have three 
new scholars engaged — the little pink-haired 
Kissam children. Why, I shall be able to 
pack money down in tea-pots and coffee- 
boilers if this goes on. Hiss Caxton had no 
such numbers.” 

“ How long will you teach a Kinder- 
garten?” asked Sarah, who sat by the side 
of a huge work-basket.” 

“ What a question ! Why shouldn’t this 
be my life-work, as fine writers say ? True, 
the Kissams will grow up, hut they will have 
children and grandchildren ; so why can I 
not go on teaching generation after genera- 
tion until I get so old I ‘ have no wool in the 
place where the wool ought to grow ’ and 
must have a wig, like Hr. Wickham? Dear 


MARGARET CHANGES HER MIND, 269 

old soul! if ever lie would get his topknot 
on straight ! This noon the seam went stray- 
ing off toward his left ear, like the road to 
Compton Mills.” 

‘‘ Miss Caxton did not make a life-work 
of it.” 

‘‘ True. I suppose she began, however, by 
saying ‘ Providence permitting and no man 
interfering/” 

“ Don’t you begin in that way ?” 

I haven’t given man’s interference a 
thought.” 

You are twenty and more, ain’t you, 
Doris? It does seem incredible.” 

‘‘And you feel it borne into you that I 
lack dignity ? It is a fact, Sarah, and I 
promise not to hop and skip so much.” 

“ No, but I felt a call, Doris, to sort of — 
of—” 

“ Yes, speak right out. You think that I 
ought not to tease poor Mr. Wickham, but 
he likes it, Sarah. He knows I never would 
fail in real respect.” 

“ Law, child, you never do. And it isn’t 
old Mr. Wickham at all : it is Harry.” 

“ Dearie me ! What about Harry ? Mustn’t 


270 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


I poke fun at his dandy airs. Oh, Sarah, 
when I think how much that youth is going 
to know before ever he gets through college, 
I am appalled; but his uncle says that it 
may be he will worry through and amount 
to something.’’ 

“ Don’t you like him much ?” 

“ Oh, ever so much.” 

He thinks a great deal of you ; he does 
not talk half the slang that he did before 
you said that you could not endure it.” 

That is very commendable, and it shows 
that I have a good influence over him.” 

Exactly ; but I ain’t going to advise 
you to increase your influence. Not a bit 
of it!” 

“ Why, Sarah ! What ails you ?” 

“ I mean, in plain English, that if that 
Harry Wickham goes to saying that he 
wants you to be his sister or his friend, or to 
write him good advice, and all that sort of 
thing, he’ll just be drawing you into a cor- 
respondence that will bother you ; and — and 
he is a goose, and for years he will not know 
his own mind, while you — ” 

“ I see ! I see I” laughed Doris, her eyes 


MARGARET CHANGES HER MIND. 271 

dancing with fun. Oh, Sarah, I promise 
you to be discretion itself.” 

“ Do, now, that is a good girl,” said Sarah, 
warmly. I was dreadfully afraid youM 
think I was interfering, but that Harry 
will be a boy without common sense until 
he has gray hairs. And, furthermore, I do 
say, for a fellow just going into college to be 
getting engaged and falling in love, or sup- 
posing he is — Well, ifs awful nonsense. 
It stands to reason he will not study his les- 
sons, and — ” 

‘‘ Sarah, why is this wisdom expending it- 
self on mef I am in a hurry to ask you 
about the hinges on my new desks. I will 
send in to you later if — ” 

‘‘ No, you will not. What about your 
desks ?” 

They talked of yery practical matters 
then until lunch was ready, but Sarah had 
giyen Doris something to think of. Harry 
was a little troublesome of late. She liked to 
talk with him when she had nothing else to 
do, but he was not satisfied with odd minutes. 
He was anxious to sing if she looked at the 
piano, ready to hear everything she said, 


272 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


“always everywhere lately,” as she was all 
at once very conscious. “I am glad he is 
going away,” was her cold-blooded decision. 
Was it, then, any wonder that when, in the 
evening, Harry confidentially remarked that 
he was going to be extremely lonely and 
truly bereaved if deprived of her society, 
she advised him to apply himself with re- 
doubled energy to his studies ? His ill-con- 
cealed vexation amused her, but not Sarah 
herself could have given the young man 
more sensible admonition and grandmother- 
ly counsel. Indeed, by the time he got out 
his request that Doris would “correspond 
with ” him, he was not unprepared for the 
polite but positive way in which she showed 
him that the claims of the Kindergarten 
were so all-engrossing she “ would not have 
time.” They argued a little ; and the more 
persistent Harry was, the more Doris was 
resolved to prove her position to be not un- 
friendly, but best. She convinced herself, 
at least, of her entire sincerity, but at the 
last Harry, with boyish rudeness, broke out, 
half angrily, 

“ I believe this minute that if it were John 


MARGARET CHANGES HER MIND. 273 


Edson asking you would say ‘ Yes.’ He is 
high-toned and intellectual enough to suit 
you.” 

‘‘ Now you are getting saucy, and I will 
not waste any more complacency on you,” 
said Doris, with a playful disregard of Har- 
ry’s increasing sulkiness or offended dignity, 
as he probably considered it. For all that, 
she was suddenly conscious of considerable 
annoyance. It would be pleasant to know 
just how John — yes, and Harry, of coarse — 
got on at college, what their life there was. 
No doubt John Edson would write to her 
of things interesting and inspiring, as he 
talked. 

No more unfortunate time than that could 
John have chosen to go over and stand by 
the library-table in order to say quite simply 
to Doris, 

‘‘If I should write to you sometimes — 
often, perhaps — while I am in college, would 
you answer my letters, Doris ?” 

How could John understand aright the 
cloud that came over the girl’s usually 
bright face and the hesitation of her reply ? 

“I was just telling Harry Wickham that 
18 


274 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


— how busy I expect to be now with my 
school. I didn’t think I could find time to 
— for — ” 

‘‘ I am sorry,” said John, trying to cover 
her embarrassment and his own mortifica- 
tion by adding quickly, ‘‘ I suppose Marga- 
ret and Mr. Wickham will keep us pretty 
well informed as to matters here.” He was 
hurt so deeply that it required an effort to 
remain a few minutes longer and talk of 
indifferent things. 

In mind and heart John was years older 
than Harry Wickham. Sometimes, lately, 
he had hoped that Doris discriminated be- 
tween them — that she had some intuition of 
the feeling which John had for her. He 
meant to wait years, if need be, before he 
asked her to become his wife, but now he 
reasoned that she never would have repulsed 
him in this way if she had not intended to 
discourage all hope in him. In the few days 
that remained he saw Doris only at the table, 
and made no attempt to have any last uncer- 
emonious talk with her. 

Under Dr. Hughes’s care Mrs. Allen re- 


MARGARET CHANGES HER MIND. 275 


gained strength, and surprised every one by 
a certain new energy and enthusiasm in 
conduct and in conversation. Mr. Wick- 
ham feared to alarm her by following the 
doctor’s orders in regard to her business 
arrangements ; but when he advised her to 
attend to making a will under the altered 
conditions of her now small property, she 
merely said she was about to propose the 
same thing. 

‘‘ I declare,” said that gentleman to Miss 
Mears, ‘‘ Mrs. Allen seems like a new woman 
mentally. This pure air is doing wonders 
for her. She was so listless during the last 
business-talk we had that I despaired of ever 
getting any accurate knowledge of her affairs. 
You will be glad to know that she is better 
off than we had reason to suppose she 
was. She forgot entirely in her late trouble 
some Government bonds which she had all 
the time locked away in a safe place. It is 
well she did forget, or that Spiritual stock- 
gambler would have made short work of 
them for her. Now she is several thou- 
sand dollars better off than we su23posed.” 

“ Well, I am glad to hear it, but I presume 


276 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


I never could have five dollars tucked away 
in any corner of my premises and forget it. 
I never was brought up to money ; that 
makes the difference, I suppose. I was go- 
ing to say, though, that it ain’t just our air 
that has done her good, by any means, but 
Mrs. Allen has come to her senses and given 
up Spiritualism.” 

Some of Margaret’s doings, that ?” 

“I don’t know about that, but she has 
taken right hold at last of the truth. I 
never was more astonished than I was to see 
Mr. Floyd come walking in one day and 
announce that Mrs. Allen had sent for him. 
Since that he has been here several times, 
and she means to unite with the church 
next Sunday.” 

‘‘Well! Well, she is very much more 
cheerful.” 

“ Of course she is, Mr. Wickham. Isn’t 
there some difference in a belief that God 
reigns, that Christ died for you, that the 
Holy Spirit is your Guide and Comforter 
and the Bible your code of laws — between 
that and a belief that lying spirits may any 
time tell you this thing and that, that all 


MARGARET CHANGES HER MIND. 277 


your dead relations who behaved themselves 
in life are now careering around the universe 
upsetting furniture and going to strange 
folks’ receptions or wherever any crank 
sees fit to summon them?” 

“ You are eloquent, Sarah,” laughed Mr. 
Wickham, but I must not stay longer to 
listen.” 

The lawyer passed through the hall, 
opened the front door and stood face to face 
with Mr. Floyd. They had a minute’s 
pleasant chat, and then Mr. Floyd addressed 
himself to Margaret, who appeared. He 
asked for Mrs. Allen, but was told that she 
had not rested well the previous night and 
had just fallen asleep, having asked that she 
might not be disturbed for an hour or two. 
To Margaret’s regret, the minister promptly 
accepted her by no means pressing invitation 
to enter. He walked into the library and 
seated himself for a call, saying, 

“ Then, Miss Edson, I may see you a 
little while, may I not ? I was puzzled and 
a good deal disappointed at what you told 
me so briefly after church Wednesday even- 
ing. Are you willing to tell me now why 


278 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


you have ‘ concluded, ’ as you said, ‘ not to 
come into the church ’ 

Nothing could be more kind than Mr. 
Floyd’s manner, yet Margaret, as always 
before with him, found it hard to choose her 
words. Her cheeks grew the color of her 
pink morning- dress, and she was provoked to 
realize that what seemed then to her a truth- 
ful statement would very likely prove a rude 
one. He waited, looking anything but “ wild,” 
as she had once called him. Indeed, a phrase 
of Thomas a Kempis she had seen quoted 
the day before occurred to her : he seemed 
like “a just judge, strong and patient.” 

“ I have given up the idea for several 
reasons. I may not explain it in a way 
intelligible to you, but it is something like 
this : I read and hear of a type of church- 
members that I do not see. Ilelio:ion, or 
Christianity, must mean to such a person 
infinitely more than it means to me, or could 
mean, I think — or, to be entirely honest, 
more than I want it to mean — to me. I am 
not ready to be, even if- it could be possible 
for me to be, a Christian — like Christians in 
memoirs, for instance. Failing of that, I 


MARGARET CHANGES HER MIND. 279 


find church-members, as a class, just like all 
members of society, who, in the main are 
honest, truthful and generally respectable. 
I shall try outside the church to keep the 
commandments and be helpful and charitable 
just as sincerely as I should do it if I were 
recorded on the books as a communicant ; 
so, as I might say, what is the use ? I am 
not rich enough to make my connection 
with a church any way very desirable for 
the treasury thereof.’’ She was making out 
such a well-sounding plea that she wound it 
up in a playful tone. 

It did not awaken any immediate response 
in the minister, whose dark eyes studied her 
with a kind of sorrowful gravity, until after 
a while he repeated, 

‘‘A ‘communicant’! Yes, if you feel 
that way, you would not want to be one at 
the Lord’s table. I understand you perfect- 
ly. It is something like this, we will say : 
Your brother John is going away soon. He 
loves you, and all his future plans take you 
in. He has talked with me, and a grand 
fellow John is, I can tell you. Before he 
goes suppose that he gives his life for you. 


280 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


That fact you learn, and all the intensity of 
his love, of his self-abnegation and sacrifice, 
you can understand if you care to do so ; 
but you have not time, and you don’t want 
it to seem real to you because you are not 
certain that you wish to comprehend such 
love, any way. Well, before John dies Jie 
has asked you to join with any others who 
love him and hereafter remember him, re- 
call his life, his love and his death. How 
could any one fail to understand you if you 
refused foT reasons like these? — I do not 
love John with the ideal love which a 
certain type of sister has; why should I 
pretend to what I do not feel ? I can be- 
have as any brother might like a sister to 
behave without any formal meeting with 
John’s friends, who only want to keep his 
love alive in their hearts, to talk about John’s 
father in heaven, and mine. You have a 
Christian father and mother there, have you 
not?” 

“ I don’t think that a parallel case or any 
argument,” said Margaret, warmly. “John 
I love, of course, and—” 

“ And the Lord Jesus Christ ?” 


MARGARET CHANGES HER MIND, 281 


‘‘I don’t know anything about,” said Mar- 
garet, grimly, after a long pause. 

Then, my poor child, you have some- 
thing very grand and precious to learn, and, 
while I admit that you are not ready to do 
what you first proposed, you can be ready 
without delay.” 

Margaret made no reply, but throughout 
the rest of the call sat almost speechless. 
Plainly and earnestly Mr. Floyd reasoned 
and pleaded with her, until he was convinced 
that she was hardening her heart against 
him and his words. He read her mind far 
better than she knew it herself at last, 
detecting the pride, indifference and world- 
liness behind her more pleasing character- 
istics, and before he went away he told her 
gently some very plain truths which she did 
not forget. 

Mrs. Allen was very sorry when Marga- 
ret, evading any direct questions as to her 
reasons, declined to unite with the church 
the following Sunday. She clung to Mar- 
garet now more and more, and to her Mar- 
garet was more yielding and affectionate than 
to any one else. She seemed resolved to 


282 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


quiet the stirring of her conscience by lav- 
ishing increased attentions on Mrs. Allen. 
She devised pleasures for her when she was 
well and redoubled her cares if she were 
ailing; she did everything but study the 
Bible with her. Sarah Hears had pro- 
posed to read anything to Mrs. Allen at a 
certain hour when both of them were most 
unoccupied, and it had come to be the 
Bible that they always read and talked 
about. 

And so the summer slipped by. One 
bright morning John Edson and Harry 
Wickham left their old friends for college, 
and were greatly missed. Soon Doris be- 
gan her school, and found head, heart and 
hands full of pleasant plans for the work 
she loved. Margaret never failed in the 
exact performance of every self-imposed 
duty in the household, and still had time 
to gain and keep social popularity. The 
Parker girls had taken her into their inner 
circle of congenial friends ; she belonged to 
their select literary club, and was now, as a 
matter of course, invited to parties, recep- 
tions and all the festivities of the village. 


MARGARET CHANGES HER MIND. 283 


She was still very regular in attending tlie 
clmrcli exercises of all kinds, but no change 
had as yet come over her views as she had 
expressed them to Mr. Floyd. 


CHAPTER Xyil. 

ONE AFTERNOON. 

“ This life of mortal breath 
Is but a suburb of the life elysian 
Whose portal we call Death.” 

Longfellow. 

^ AHGARET, doiiT you want to take a 
J-’J- walk with me?’’ asked Mrs. Allen one 
afternoon in late September. 

‘‘ Certainly I do,” replied Margaret. ‘‘ Sit 
right here in the porch while I run up stairs 
and get our wraps and bonnets.” 

A little later they were sauntering along 
a street leading directly out of town. In- 
deed, it was almost like a country road from 
the first, for every now and then there were 
fields yellow with golden-rod and fences 
overrun with Virginia creeper, while be- 
tween the plank sidewalk and the road was 
a hedge of wild purple asters. 

Mrs. Allen was as happy as a child out for 
a holiday.” 

284 


ONE AFTERNOON. 


285 


“ It is queer,” she said, “ how I enjoy the 
country ; before this year I have always re- 
garded it merely as a place of escape from 
the heat of the city.” 

Margaret well knew this. She had been 
asking herself if her improved health or 
her new ^‘religious notions” had given to 
this once languid body so much more zest. 
Whatever the reason was, Margaret found 
her society far more agreeable. She thought 
and talked less of herself, was easily enter- 
tained and was very grateful for kindness. 

“This road, followed long enough, leads 
to the old house in which I was born and 
brought up,” said Margaret. 

“ Oh, let us walk to it, then. I feel really 
strong to-day ; this clear air is so invigorat- 
ing. Does any one whom you know live in 
the house ?” 

“ John said that it was just now unoccu- 
pied. We can walk as far as you like, but 
our old home would seem only a dingy lit- 
tle farmhouse to you.” 

“I would like to see it. It must have 
been hard for you to lose it.” 

“ Oh yes ; at the time I felt very bitter. 


286 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


but now I am glad it went. I might have 
been tied down to living there./’ 

Would that have been so very dread- 
ful a thing?” 

‘‘‘Dreadful’? Yes, indeed! Then I 
never should have known you.” Truth 
prompted Margaret to add “ and should 
never have enjoyed all you have done for 
me,” but, while she did not feel that ac- 
quaintance alone with Mrs. Allen had been 
so much to her, she was still fond enough 
of her not to value her solely for what she 
had received or to wish her to think her 
merely grateful, not affectionate. 

Soon they were beyond the town limits, 
treading hard-beaten paths past orchards 
fragrant with ripe apples or stopping to 
rest on some wayside boulder or looking 
off to autumnal-tinted woods through the 
soft air, which seemed filled with amber 
sunshine. Mrs. Allen’s cheeks were flushed 
with the unusual exercise, but she playfully 
insisted on “ going on ” when they saw the 
old barns of the Edson homestead. 

As they came up to the gate Margaret 
exclaimed. 


ONE AFTERNOON 


287 


It looks better to me than I thought it 
would look.’’ 

“Why, it is a dear old spot!” exclaimed 
Mrs. Allen, glancing up at a great maple 
whose flaming foliage gave color to the 
neutral tint of the weatherbeaten house. 

Old as was this house, it was undecayed 
and kept a certain peaceful air of unpre- 
tending comfort. The sight of the great 
stone doorstep and the little old rustic bench 
on either side made Margaret’s eyes suddenly 
dim, so often had she seen her father come 
weary from the field and drop down there 
to rest. 

“ I wish we could get in ; I would like to 
see the rooms where you lived.” 

“ Perhaps I can by going around. You 
stay here while I try to get into the wood- 
shed and unbolt the front door for you.” 

Mrs. Allen waited alone, and in a moment 
or two heard some one within. It was Mar- 
garet, who opened to her, saying, 

“ It was not very securely fastened, there 
being nothing to steal.” 

They turned into the old sitting-room, and 
Margaret, in a softening mood, talked of how 


288 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


it used to look ; then into the bedroom where 
her father and mother died. As they went 
thus slowly from room to room Margaret 
thought of her former self — the shy, dis- 
contented girl — as of a second person. She 
half pitied her, yet half realized that the 
girl ought to have been better and happier. 

Mrs. Allen asked many questions, and 
finally said, 

I wish I had been brought up in some 
quiet Christian home. I remember only 
boarding-schools, fashion, folly and trouble. 
But, thank God ! it is past now. Margaret, 
I am a little too tired to walk right back ; 
let us go out by that old well I saw and sit 
a while on the grassy terrace.’’ 

‘‘ Yes, I was afraid it would be too much 
for you,” said Margaret, at once going out 
into the sunshine. She hastened to find a 
comfortable nook in the long, dry grass, and 
made Mrs. Allen lean for support against her 
strong young shoulders. They sat there 
talking nearly an hour. As Mrs. Allen’s 
hand lay in her lap, ungloved for the time, 
the sunlight made a diamond in a ring that 
she wore flash with blinding brilliancy. 







ONE AFTERNOON 


289 


Margaret spoke of it, and Mrs. Allen, 
glancing down, said, 

I forgot to take it off*; I meant to, be- 
cause my finger has grown very thin. It is 
a beautiful ring, and one that my Lily used 
to admire. I promised it to her when she 
should be of age. I wonder if, when she 
came of age in heaven, she thought of me ? 
But I must not ask such questions ; I know 
God has her in his keeping. Oh, Margaret, 
everything has changed so to me ! I can’t 
fear anything here or hereafter ; I was heavy 
laden, but the Lord gave me rest.” She was 
mechanically moving the ring as she talked ; 
then, in the long silence after her last words, 
she drew it off, and, putting it on Margaret’s 
finger, said, “ It fits you far better; you may 
have it, dear, to remember this afternoon 

by.” 

‘‘ Oh, Mrs. Allen !” cried Margaret. “ It 
is of great value, I know: ought you to give 
me such a thing ?” 

“No one has any better claim to it. I 
don’t think it is merely because I am get- 
ting old and ill that I think so little of 
these things ; jewels and dress, and all the 

19 


290 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


nonsense I once delighted in, now seem such 
trifles compared with the things that really 
are the best and brightest and happiest in 
life. You are so much more sensible than I 
ever was that you will not be silly enough to 
over-estimate the worth of these things.’’ 

Oh, but this is so beautiful !” cried Mar- 
garet, who had never in her life been more 
elated over a gift. She put her arm about 
Mrs. Allen, and, kissing her warmly, ex- 
claimed, “ I am not half so wise as you give 
me credit for being ; I love rare things, and 
I long to possess them. You are very good 
to me, and you always have been. I don’t 
deserve it, but I do appreciate your kind- 
ness.” 

Mrs. Allen turned and studied the ani- 
mated, handsome face so close to her own ; 
then she said, 

‘‘ I have a pearl ring set around with tur- 
quoise ; it always makes me think of white 
lilies and blue sky and pure young girls 
like Doris. I mean to give it to Doris ; she 
made me want to find the Savioui* as I never 
had wanted to before. Margaret, I may die 
at any time; I would willingly live if I 


ONE AFTERNOON. 


291 


thought I could ever do much or any good 
in the world, just to show my gratitude to 
God ; but I am so ignorant that when I hear 
Miss Dusenbury talk of what other women 
are doing in mission work and temperance 
work, and all that, I seem like such a weak, 
stupid creature. I never could do anything, I 
am afraid, but tell the people close to me how 
good the Lord is and that I love him. I am 
ashamed when I think of the long life be- 
hind me all wasted. Now, Margaret, lately 
I have been thinking about you, and I see a 
way of helping a little in the good work of 
the world. Some day, when I am dead, Mr. 
Wickham will tell you what I might as well 
tell you now — that I have left you all I 
have.” She did not even notice the great 
start which the young girl gave and the 
amazement in her countenance, but she 
went on slowly : It is more than we 
thought ; I forgot, when we left New York, 
some Government bonds I had, and some 
valuable property in the West. There will 
be at least fifteen thousand dollars, and the 
jewels I have laid away that you never saw. 
I would sell them, if I were you. I have no 


292 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


near relatives, and there will be no trouble 
about the will. Mr. Wickham knows every- 
thing. But now I do not want to talk to 
you of ourselves, but of the poor and the 
ignorant.’’ 

Margaret, whose face had become radiant, 
gazed at the lady, bewildered yet more by 
her last words. 

Of course I give you what I leave with- 
out any restrictions, for I don’t know enough 
to tell you how to live your life after making 
such a failure of mine, but, Margaret, don’t 
live just for yourself. At first I thought I 
would leave all I have to charitable institu- 
tions, but I don’t understand much about 
them, and it seems to me that to give it to 
you, whom I love and trust, will be better. 
Because,” she added, with a childlike smile, 
‘‘ you can try and do the good that I never 
did ; you can help the suffering and give as 
you can spare in order that the knowledge 
of the gospel may be spread. Mr. Floyd 
says that if we are Christ’s all we have is 
his.” 

“ Mrs. Allen,” exclaimed Margaret, grow- 
ing pale with dread of the effect her words 


ONE AFTERNOON. 


293 


might have, yet not daring to wait lest some 
time she should be tempted to take what 
might not have been understandingly given 
to her — Mrs. Allen, I am not living any 
such life as that; perhaps I will live for my- 
self always. I am sorry for the suffering 
which I see, but I don’t feel as Christians 
seem to say they do. If you give me your 
property, I shall share it with my brother, 
and he leads just such a life.” 

“ I know, Margaret, that there is some- 
thing that you have not reached, but I be- 
lieve the Lord will bring you to it; some 
time, maybe, he will leave you alone long 
enough for you to see what you lack. Don’t 
you think there is a little chill in the air, 
now that tlie sun is getting lower? Per- 
haps we ought to go home.” 

‘‘Yes,” said Margaret, absently. She was 
trying to take in what she had heard. She 
was vaguely aware that she had not spoken 
one word of thanks, and not one word had 
been expected, judging from the simplicity 
of this little woman who gave away diamonds 
and dollars by the thousand as so many peb- 
bles, keeping her enthusiasm for this religion 


294 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


which in a few months had come to mean to 
her more than it had meant to Margaret after 
a lifetime of familiarity with its teachings. 

In the mean time, Mrs. Allen arose, took 
a step or two, and, glancing across the road, 
asked. 

Do you know that man who is tying his 
horse to the post down the road ? There, by 
the white house.’’ 

Yes — or, at least, I presume it is Mr. 
Mather: he lives there.” 

‘‘ Well, Margaret, I believe you will have 
to go over and make some arrangement with 
him, or with some one else, for me to ride 
home ; I have walked and talked too much. 
I feel that strange sensation that I can’t de- 
scribe.” 

Margaret, expressing much concern, made 
the old lady lean against the well-house, 
found for her her bottle of camphor, and then 
hastened down the road to Mr. Mather. He 
was just entering his house, but promptly fol- 
lowed Margaret, glad to render her a service. 

Mrs. Allen looked very ill indeed, and 
scarcely spoke until they reached home. 
Mr. Wickham met them at the gate, and 


ONE AFTERNOON. 


295 


the two men had almost to carry her to her 
room. Doris came with a troubled face, and 
the girls rapidly and gently put her to bed. 
The doctor soon arrived, summoned by Mr. 
Mather on his way home, but Mrs. Allen’s 
first ill-feelings had begun to pass away, and 
the doctor assured her that she had been un- 
duly alarmed. She was very patient when 
Doris brought her supper and petted and 
cared for her until Margaret laughingly de- 
clared herself “jealous.” 

Margaret’s eyes were very brilliant, and 
Doris had never seen her so full of subdued 
joyousness. The girl was not heartless — 
she hoped Mrs. Allen’s life would be in- 
definitely prolonged — but the future was 
now bright. 

It was a warm, moonlight evening, and 
the girls withdrew to a nook by the bow- 
window. They talked so low that the in- 
valid could not be disturbed, but after a 
while she called Margaret, saying, 

“ Will you take out of my desk the key 
of my rosewood box and bring me from the 
box a little ivory casket? I want to give 
Doris her ring to-night.” 


296 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


Margaret obeyed ; and when the pretty 
trinket was at hand, Doris was called to 
admire and receive it. 

‘‘ It is very, very beautiful, dear Mrs. 
Allen, but I did not need any token to make 
me remember you.” 

‘‘ Thank you, Lilian,” she replied ; then, 
not heeding her mistake, went on : I have 
been thinking as I rested here of that won- 
derful New Jerusalem with walls ‘ garnished 
with all manner of precious stones.’ It is 
beautiful to think of, but how much more 
lovely is it to know that there there shall be 
‘ no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, 
neither shall there be any more pain ’! 
Good-night, girls ; go back in the moonlight 
and talk as long as you like.” 

The girls said “ Good-night,” and later Mrs. 
Allen was sleeping so sweetly that they trod 
lightly in and out. At just what hour of 
that calm, beautiful night it was true of this 
lonely woman that the former things had 
“ passed away ” no one could ever tell ; but 
when the dawn filled the chamber with 
glory they found her smiling, her hands 
folded on her lifeless breast. 


CHAPTEK XVIII. 

THE UNFORESEEN. 

“ Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?” 

T N the year after Mrs. Allen’s death af- 
fairs went on very quietly in the house. 
Miss Mears regained her health, Doris had 
excellent success in her school, and Marga- 
ret, taking a somewhat freer position in the 
household, had more leisure from domestic 
duties. This she diligently improved by 
hard study. Aware that she had been 
hindered earlier from getting a really liberal 
education, she exercised all her intellectual 
powers to the uttermost. She kept up a 
constant correspondence with her brother, 
and he often declared that she was trying to 
steal a college course that she might outstrip 
him in the end. 

Mrs. Allen’s death had scarcely been pub- 
lished a week before Mr. Wickham received 


297 


298 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


numerous applications from would-be h^irs 
to the poor lady’s property. There were 
two ‘‘well-beloved” yet hitherto neglected 
nephews who signally failed to establish 
their relationship, and four “ Spiritual kins- 
men,” as well as two “ soul-sisters,” who put 
in claims. Both of these last had had 
direct revelations from the spirit- world that 
Mrs. Allen intended to leave her “ all ” to 
each of them individually. One had directly 
communicated with Mrs. Allen since her 
decease, if the “sister’s,” word was to be 
taken, and Mrs. Allen regretted having left 
anything to Margaret and wished her will 
set aside in her favor. All these applicants 
found Mr. Wickham a hard-headed old fel- 
low who insisted that tlie laws of property 
applied only to this world and were not sub- 
ject to “inspirational” influences; so at last 
Margaret Edson came into full possession of 
an amount moderate, it is true, but sufficient 
for her own comfort and her brother’s extra 
expenses. 

John was doing himself great credit in 
college and acting the part of a true friend 
to Harry, as Mr. Wickham had frequent 


THE UNFORESEEN. 


299 


opportunities of knowing. In the summer, 
a year from his departure, Harry had re- 
turned for a visit, but John taught during 
his vacations. It was again September, and 
Margaret had not seen him ; in view of this 
fact, she had formed a new plan for the 
months to come. One pleasant afternoon 
she felt inclined for a walk, and said to 
Sarah Mears, 

“ I think I will go over to Doris’s school 
and come home with her. I have not seen 
her flock this term.” 

“ She will be glad to see you, no doubt — 
or, to tell the truth, she’ll be more glad to 
show you those remarkable cherubs of hers. 
She thinks no youngsters ever were so pretty 
or sang so well or learned so fast. She knows 
every one of them will grow up a prodigy.” 

“ I suppose that is just why she succeeds 
so admirably,” laughed Margaret as she 
started ; and on her way along the pleasant 
village street she mused on Doris : “ She is 
a sunshiny, restful little thing with a good 
deal of character and all the virtues that 
preachers and teachers extol. She is not 
pushing, though, nor ambitious. She will 


300 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


teach until somebody persuades her to marry, 
and then she will make a model wife. Jolin 
used to admire her, but I want John to do — 
something else. I would not have a man 
marry for money, but he might as well go 
where money is, especially as there are 
plenty of nice rich girls. With his brains, 
he ought to get hereafter a city church with 
a large salary and marry to strengthen his 
social position. I shall scheme a little for 
him. Such a girl, now, as Eleanor Parker 
would suit me.’’ 

Doris held her school in a small house in a 
very quiet neighborhood. Miss Caxton had 
found it a bare and unattractive place, but 
had set herself at once to improve it. Now 
vines covered the unsightly walls, the grass 
was kept trim, flowers flourished, and the 
children felt a peculiar pride in having 
‘‘ our ” schoolhouse “ pretty.” That it cer- 
tainly was, for, within, the walls were hung 
with pictures and rustic ornaments. There 
were no hard benches, but easy little chairs, 
bright curtains, and even soft cushions where 
the tiniest pupils had been known to drop 
placidly off to sleep if so inclined. When 


THE UNFORESEEN. 


801 


people wanted to tease Doris, they professed 
to believe that she made her school-teaching 
an excuse to have pure fun and frolic with a 
merry crew of mischief-loving little sprites. 
To-day, again, Margaret hinted at this ; for 
when she arrived the whole battalion was 
marching and singing with faces radiant, 
curls flying and eyes sparkling in a way to 
amaze an old-fashioned switch ’’-sceptred 
pedagogue. 

The pupils were almost immediately dis- 
missed, and Margaret was soon alone with 
Doris. Neither was in haste to go home, 
for the afternoon sun, the soft air and the 
perfume of many flowers made the room 
pleasant. 

“ Doris, would you not like to go to Eu- 
rope?” asked Margaret. 

‘‘‘To Europe’?” repeated Doris, giving 
the question no answer for a moment. There 
vividly came back to her the recollection of 
that day when her trunk was packed and 
her plans were made to cross the ocean to 
meet her father, who rested to-day in an 
unknown grave. “Yes; under pleasant 
circumstances I would like very much to 


302 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


travel. What makes you ask that question, 
Margaret?” 

‘‘ Because I mean to go some time in the 
near future, and you might go too. Oh, it 
does not take such a long, long purse ; I am 
quite a schemer, and I see how to accomplish 
the thing. Mr. Wickham has explained to 
me every item in regard to what Mrs. Allen 
left. Now, John will not let me help him half 
as fast as I could wish ; he is helping him- 
self all the while, and by the time he is 
through college he says he can see his way 
to clear himself from all his indebtedness to 
Mr. Wickham. In the mean time, I am afraid 
that he does not give himself comforts enough. 
Now, I am planning to go to him — or, rather, to 

go to N , which is a very pleasant college 

town, as you know. If we can arrange to live 
together in some simple fashion, I can make 
it homelike for him and he can help me with 
my reading and study. Mrs. Allen talked to 
me once in a queer sort of a way, and let me 
see that — Well, that she never had given 
money away in — Oh, to the heathen, I 
suppose. So I feel in duty bound to set 
aside on that account a sum for such pur- 


THE UNFORESEEN. 


303 


poses. Then, as I told you, I am good at 
planning. I mean to try and earn some- 
thing ; there are ways to do so not too hard 
when one is independent and can choose to. 
While helping John and giving to charity 
as Mrs. Allen wished me to do I can over and 
above save something each month. By the 
time John is out of college and started on a 
career I then can go to Europe. I never 
shall be contented until I do go.” 

Will you be contented then ?” asked 
Doris, with a half-playful, half-earnest ex- 
pression on her sweet face. 

No-o ; very likely I shall see a mountain 
beyond that mountain.” 

I think you are very sensible to go to 
your brother. Sometimes I wish very much 
that I was not so entirely alone — that I had 
a brother or a sister.” 

‘‘ Yes, I am ready for a new turn of my 
kaleidoscope; I hate monotony. John says 
there is very refined and charming society 
there — the families and friends of the col- 
lege professors. I want the best of all such 
things, and I believe, Doris, that I can have 
the best if I say I will. We must make 


304 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


^ circumstances stand around/ as I heard a 
queer creature say once.” 

^‘But I suppose there are people who 
have to stand around for circumstances,” 
said Doris. 

“ No doubt there are, poor wretches ! I 
pity them. In fact, I had to do it once my- 
self, but I never will again.” 

How strong and self-reliant this handsome 
Margaret looked as she said that! Doris ad- 
mired her in these moods, even if she did not 
always sympathize with the moods. For her- 
self, she was not at all sure she could order 
events to her own satisfaction. Her text 
that morning, thoughtfully studied, had 
been, Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteous- 
ness, because of mine enemies. Make thy 
way straight before my face.” 

When will you go to your brother ?” 

“ Next week ; I have fully decided to-day, 
and will write this evening.” 

‘‘Well, I suppose it is time that we were 
going home,” said Doris, beginning to ar- 
range some matters for the next morning. 
Margaret amused herself, meanwhile, in 
looking at specimens of the children’s work. 


THE UNFORESEEN. 


305 


There ! I have done everything now ; only 
I must show you a drawing one of the boys 
made to-day/’ said Doris, opening her desk. 

Margaret found it very amusing, and then, 
reaching out, she unfolded a paper map which 
she happened to see. Suddenly she gave a 
cry of pain and pressed her hand to one eye. 

Why, what is the matter ?” exclaimed 
Doris, 

Oh ! It hurt me so ! I drew the sharp 
edge of that paper right across my eyeball. 
The map opened larger than I expected.” 

Here, let me get you water to bathe it. 
Don’t rub it,” cried Doris, hastening to bring 
cold water.” 

The pain subsided a little after applying 
this with a soft handkerchief, yet the eye 
was very uncomfortable, and finally Mar- 
garet was forced to bind it with her hand- 
kerchief, put on a veil and go home to con- 
sult Sarah. 

She will tell you something to do for it 
if the trouble is not all over soon ; I always 
take all my aches and pains to her for re- 
lief,” said Doris as they went down the 
street. 

20 


306 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


‘‘ It is really absurd to make a fuss over 
such a trifle, but it hurts me all the time,” 
was Margaret’s excuse that evening for keep- 
ing on the bandage. 

Sarah advised some soothing remedies, but 
the next morning it was apparent that the 
injury might not be a “ trifle,” and Margaret, 
urged by Mr. Wickham, consulted the doc- 
tor. He gave her some preparation to apply, 
told her to avoid getting cold in her eye and 
to shut out the light from it ; then no doubt it 
would soon be all right. He was mistaken : 
it grew constantly worse; inflammation set 
in, and Margaret not only suffered intensely, 
but became thoroughly alarmed. At the end 
of a week Sarah Mears went with her to a 
very successful oculist in a not distant city. 
He encouraged her to be patient under 
what might be a tedious aflliction, and re- 
turned her to the doctor’s care with advice 
about future treatment. That it could be 
anything beyond a matter for patient but 
comparatively brief endurance did not for 
some time once occur to Margaret. She had 
little rest by day or sleep by night, but she 
was very grateful for the care and hearty 


THE UNFORESEEN. 


307 


sympathy shown her, and kept brave, and 
even cheerful. One morning, after an opiate 
had afforded Margaret a night of more ease 
than she expected, it seemed to her that she 
must be better, and, although in pain, she 
spoke very confidently to all who greeted 
her of speedy recovery. She was in the 
library, alone, in the great easy-chair, when 
Sarah announced the doctor at an earlier 
hour than he was due. 

Why have you bandaged both eyes he 
asked, anxiously. 

“ Oh, I fancied it was more comfortable 
so.” 

He made a careful examination, and said 
gravely, 

‘‘The inflammation is extending to the 
other eye. I think. Miss Edson, we had 
better send for Dr. Hotchkins to run up 
and see you. I am not ignorant of diseases 
of the eye, but I am not a specialist, and one 
ought to have the very best of oculists for 
cases like this. You are not better, nor doing 
well at all.” 

“ I think,” said Sarah, perhaps after re- 
ceiving a hint to offer the suggestion, “ that 


308 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


you and I might go down to the city and 
stay for a week ; then you could be under 
the doctor’s supervision constantly and to 
this proposal Margaret agreed with alarmed 
alacrity. 

From that day a mental terror greater 
than any physical suffering kept her heart- 
sick : if she should become blind ! That 
both eyes were getting much worse was soon 
evident, and the oculist did not disguise his 
fears, wishing to prepare her for a step which 
he apprehended was to be inevitable. 

At last there came a Sunday which never 
to the day of her death could Margaret 
Edson forget. Unable to endure her anxiety 
longer, she broke out,' 

Do tell me. Doctor Hotchkins, exactly 
what you think. Is it more probable than 
not that I may lose the sight of that eye?” 

My dear girl, I am afraid it is, and there 
is a possibility that to save the other eye 
you must soon have the right eye taken 
out.” 

With a groan that almost wrung an 
answering one from Sarah, Margaret shrieked, 
‘ Taken out ’ ! What ! not only to be 


THE UNFORESEEN. 


309 


blind, but disfigured for life? Oh, doctor, 
that is too cruel ! It can’t be possible.” 

They did their best to soothe her, and 
soon she ceased to make audible complaint ; 
but the remainder of the day she seemed 
turned to stone. Again and again she asked 
herself how it could be possible for such a 
horrible experience to come to her. Had 
she not all her life been so well that illness 
had almost seemed to her a mark of a weak 
mind or the peculiarity of people not good 
for much ? She had talked fluently of the 
survival of the fittest in every grade ; it was 
the vigorous-minded, aspiring ones who took 
and kept the best things of this life ; but 
here she was, not even stricken down with a 
malady that time and skill could cure ; a 
grim, remorseless hand seemed suddenly to 
have reached out and dragged her into 
fathomless darkness. Blindness, partial or 
total, with disfigurement, was to be her doom. 

Margaret had not thought herself vain — 
perhaps in a silly way she never had been so 
— but now she realized how much she valued 
her handsome face, counted on it as a factor in 
her schemes for life. Life ! What would it 


310 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


mean henceforward ? Study ! And with 
whose eyes, pray ? Travel ! That she might 
stand blind before all the beauty of foreign 
art or in the presence of Alpine scenery ? 
Had she come into full knowledge of what 
seemed to be the richness of life only to 
have every precious, satisfying thing snatched 
from her while her hand seemed strong to 
grasp and hold ? In an agony of rebellion 
and foreboding she demanded of herself 
what was left her. Well, probably, at the 
best, a marred, repulsive face ; at the worst 
— and this worst she knew was far from 
being improbable — why she must learn to 
feel her way feebly about a house, to be led 
through streets, to sit in corners learning to 
knit tidies, as she had seen old blind women 
do. Oh, was there nothing that she could 
do to escape this fate? Christian people 
would say, ‘‘Pray,” but at that thought, 
from the very bottom of Margaret Edson^s 
unregenerate nature, came .such an upheaval 
and outpouring of hot revolt and passion- 
ate protest that she could restrain herself no 
longer : 

“ Sarah Hears, you say you pity me, and I 


THE UNFORESEEN. 


311 


believe it, but don’t you dare to speak one 
pious word to me ! I know what this means. 
Your God is angry with me because I would 
not be a Christian. This has come on me 
as a judgment, no doubt, as Mr. Floyd will 
say, and he will hope it will be ‘sanctified to 
me.’ It never will be. God can crush me 
because he has power to do it, but how can 
I love and trust a Being who takes all the 
light out of my life just to show me I am 
his creature ? What have I done to deserve 
this? I think it is cruel and unjust, Sarah. 
My father and my mother were Christians, 
and I thought the Bible promised blessings 
to the children of the righteous. This will be 
a dreadful blow to John. He certainly does 
not need trouble ; he is good, if 1 am not.” 

“ Margaret, my poor child, I don’t know 
anything about the Lord’s reasons, much 
less about his judgments; but I do know 
that it is the easiest thing in the world to 
think he is angry with us when we ought to 
remember that likely as not he is going to 
show us just a little how long-suffering and 
merciful he is and, ignoring the fact that 
“ pious ” talk had just been prohibited, Sa- 


312 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


rah seized the chance to say all the comfort- 
ing yet enlightening truths of which she 
thought the poor girl in need. 

But Margaret scarcely heeded, and for the 
rest of the day yielded passively to all Sa- 
rah’s efforts for her comfort, but remained 
silent. When her head ached so that she 
could not think continuously, she seemed 
sinking into a kind of despair. The next 
few days were like a long dreadful dream. 
Sometimes she would think until she be- 
came almost wild at the fancies which she 
conjured up of her future misery ; some- 
times she sat for hours listening to the street- 
sounds, trying to forget herself while she 
heard two quarrelsome children playing un- 
der the window, or counted the omnibuses 
whose heavy wheels rattled past. She bit- 
terly assured herself that she might have to 
be diverted by such things sooner or later. 
Again, finding no consolation in thoughts 
of her present or her future, Margaret would 
let her mind wander back all the way she 
had come — to her child-life in the home, 
with John to pet and play with her; her 
girlhood, so shielded, and, as now she be- 


THE UNFORESEEN. 


313 


gan to realize, holding such resources for con- 
tent, and even for happiness, had she recog- 
nized them. Oh, that week was months long, 
for in it was more suffering, both mental and 
physical, with more introspection, than before 
had been contained in Margaret’s whole life. 

Doctor Hotchkins came every day, but 
said almost nothing until Saturday, when 
he became much more hopeful. The next 
day he said, 

“ The sight is not gone, as I really feared 
it had already, and there is a decided im- 
provement.” A few days later he exclaimed 
joyfully, Your eyes are going to get well !” 

The physician expected an echo of delight 
from Margaret, but the revulsion of feeling 
was so great that instead of giving any such 
^ token she slipped back on the sofa, limp and 
senseless. 

“ Well, well ! She has been under a dread- 
ful strain, has she not ?” was his comment as 
he helped Miss Mears — or, rather, gently 
restrained her from emptying a bottle of 
ammonia into Margaret’s nostrils. 

‘‘ Now, child,” exclaimed the good woman 
when Margaret had been brought back to full 


314 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


consciousness, hope you will eat enough 
to keep you alive, s.nd sleep a little more/’ 
Yes, I will go right to bed now,” was the 
reply, in a decidedly hysterical tone. 

The doctor laughed cheerily, and said, 

“ Y es, you are not out of the woods yet, 
though you are going to be. You must be 
very, very careful; even after I cease the 
active treatment you must not for weeks sew, 
read or strain your eyes in any way. You 
must ‘ put them away ’ for perhaps the rest 
of this year, and use somebody’s else.” 

‘‘ I will do anything to keep them and my 
sight,” said Margaret, in a voice that Sarah 
had not heard for a long time previous. 

The first thing the patient did was to sleep 
for hours — the sound, renewing sleep that 
follows utter exhaustion — and then, because 
of the mental relief she had experienced, 
nothing else mattered. She laughed and 
chatted, sang and told stories, bore pain and 
weariness without a sigh, and at the end of 
two weeks she was able to be discharged 
from Dr. Hotchkins’s care. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 

“ What thou understandest not when thou readest thou shalt 
know in the day of visitation.” — Thomas 1 Kempis. 

W HEN Margaret was once more at home 
she surprised both Sarah and Doris by 
her continued patience ; not fully realizing 
how dreadful had been to her the apprehen- 
sion of total blindness, they could not enter 
into her present sense of relief. But now, 
instead of being restless because she could 
do nothing as usual in the way of study or 
work, she exerted herself to be extremely 
companionable to every one in the house. 
Sitting with bandaged eyes in the parlor 
in the evenings, she entertained the household 
with various phases of her New York experi- 
ences or with sketches of the people she had 
met while at fashionable resorts with Mrs. 
Allen. She even behaved most graciously 
toward Mr. Floyd, who called occasionally, 

315 


316 AFTER THE FAILURE. 

especially as he never attempted any more 
personal conversation with her. 

When, soon after her return, Doris ex- 
pressed regret that Margaret’s plan for liv- 
ing with John must be postponed, Margaret 
made some cheerful reply, and then begged 
of Doris a favor. It was that during her 
enforced idleness the latter would write for 
her the answers to her brother’s weekly 
letters. Doris agreed with even more will- 
ingness than she cared to express, and John 
was evidently not at all discomfited by the 
fact of his sister's employing an amanuensis. 
His letters became at once longer and more 
interesting. He had been extremely anxious 
about the result of Margaret’s trouble, and 
now promised to spend a week with her at 
the Christmas holidays. 

Margaret’s recovery was rapid ; by the 
middle of November all traces of weakness 
had gone, but for a few weeks longer she 
proposed to shield her sight and in no 
way try her eyes. She wished, as she 
laughingly declared, to begin the new year 
with new eyes. Every afternoon, when 
Doris returned from school, the two girls 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 


317 


took a long walk together, and came nearer 
to each other than ever before. 

One clear, crisp day — the twenty-third of 
December — Doris was very busy planning 
for a Christmas fete which she meant to give 
her children the next evening. She did not 
go home to join Margaret, finding it neces- 
sary to stay in the schoolhoiise with a few 
of her oldest pupils and finish certain pretty 
decorations of evergreen for the walls. She 
had just mounted a bench and was about to 
hang a wreath over a lamp, when the wreath 
was lightly taken out of her hand and put in 
its place by a much stronger arm than any 
of her youths possessed. She might have lost 
her footing in her surprise had not that same 
arm of John Edson’s helped her safely to 
reach the floor. 

‘‘ Why, where did you come from a whole 
day before you are due?” she exclaimed, 
when she had shaken hands with him. 

‘‘ Oh, I was in such a hurry to see you all 
that I could not wait any longer. And Mar- 
garet is all right once more ? Poor girl ! 
what an escape she has had!” 

‘'Yes, indeed, and I fancy that at the 


318 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


worst they softened their reports to you ; 
but she is out of all danger now/' said 
Doris. 

“ Yes, and since I have known that and 
heard how bright and patient she is I have 
given myself up to enjoying her letters ; 
they were never more welcome than of late. 
This is no treachery to her, only a grateful 
acknowledgment to you," remarked John, 
going composedly to work with greens, ham- 
mer and twine, as if he had returned from 
college for the express purpose of trimming 
Doris's schoolroom. She would not have 
been a girl if she had not by quick unde- 
tected scrutiny taken note of the great im- 
provement in the shy, rustic fellow, who had 
needed only a little more contact with the 
world of cultivated people to learn his own 
capabilities. He was frank, genial and at 
ease, while his honest eyes had lost none of 
their earnest truthfulness. 

After some moments spent in a pleasant 
little chat Doris said, 

“ Don't think you must wait for me ; I 
have nothing difficult to do here, and I 
know what a joyful surprise you will give 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 


319 


Margaret. She expects you to-morrow after- 
noon at four.’’ 

“Yes, but, so long as it is a surprise, I can 
give it to her half an hour hence just as well 
— that is, unless you are anxious to get rid 
of me.” 

But from the smile on Doris’s pretty face 
John wisely concluded that she would tolerate 
his presence. He had a great deal to tell her 
of interest, and in some way she had never 
respected the manly young fellow more than 
after that talk. He was not priggish nor 
solemn ; he indulged in comical stories of 
college doings and light-hearted inquiries 
about Mr. Wickham’s foibles and Sarah’s 
peculiarities, but he was John Edson, as 
ever — the Christian with a purpose in life. 

When the decorations were complete and 
the children had gone, Doris and John 
locked the door and started home together. 
A light snow had covered every bush, tree 
and building with a mantle of white, which 
was just now tinged a delicate rose-color 
from the sun going down most gorgeously. 
It was so charming a scene that the friends 
walked slowly — so very slowly that Doris 


320 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


was half conscience-smitten with thoughts 
of Margaret. But John would not go fas- 
ter. He talked very openly with her of his 
efforts to be self-supporting and of his success. 
He was now able to go on quite independent 
of Mr. Wickham’s help, and his course in 
college was to be just as thorough, but 
shorter than he had dared to hope : he had 
been far more advanced than he supposed 
he was when he entered. He told her that 
his purpose to be a minister was still un- 
changed, and confided in her in what she 
fancied was a most brotherly and altogether 
pleasant fashion. At the gate he said. 
Perhaps I have only been repeating 
what you have learned already from my 
letters to Margaret; and if so, maybe I 
have bored you. I hope not. Now about 
those letters. Margaret will be ready to 
write her own after this. That is good, 
but I shall be very sorry to lose yours. 
Will you not keep on giving me the pleasure 
I have learned to get from them ?” 

Doris’s reply was not lengthy nor very 
loud, but it seemed like an assent; and so 
John took it, thanking her accordingly — 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 


321 


that is, he made a grateful speech about hav- 
ing but one sister and not really wanting but 
one, and — and — Well, Doris never exactly 
made out what he did say. 

That was a very delightful Christmas to 
everybody in Miss Mears’s boarding-house. 
Sarah was now in perfect health, and her 
establishment was at last on a firm basis. 
Excellent paying boarders were always glad 
of a chance to become inmates of her house. 

Harry Wickham arrived in time for the 
holiday festivities, and, on the whole, his 
appearance and his account of himself sat- 
isfied his uncle, who rightly enough sus- 
pected that John had often had his hands 
full to manage the youth and keep him 
from disgrace. 

“ Margaret,’’ said John, “ don’t you want 
to go out for a walk ? It is a most exquisite 
evening.” 

“ Certainly ; I would like to go. It is the 
last walk we can take this year, you know. 
Shall I ask Doris?” 

‘^No,” he returned, quite to Margaret’s 
surprise ; for it was evident to her that the 
pleasure that did not include Doris Barton 
21 


322 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


was not wholly a pleasure nowadays — ‘‘ no. 
I desire to walk down past the old home to- 
night, and that belongs only to us two, of 
all the world ; the thoughts of old times, I 
mean. How many New Years’ Eves we 
have passed under that dear old roof!” 

I have not been there since Mrs. Allen 
died,” said Margaret. 

‘‘And would you rather not go there now ? 
Will it make you feel too sad ?” 

“ No. I could not feel for Mrs. Allen as 
I should have felt if she had not been so 
alone in the world. She was ready to die. 
I often wonder that she took such a fancy 
to me, instead of liking Doris. I think it 
just happened.” 

“ I do not ; God is back of such ‘ happen- 
ings.’ ” 

“ Well, at the last she was very fond of 
Doris and said she did her good.” 

“ I don’t wonder ; I — I’m fond of Doris 
myself;” and John laughed a little bash- 
fully. “Do you think it is of any use?” 

Margaret was tempted to be malicious, 
and replied, 

“Well, practically considered, the (][ues- 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 


323 


tion is too deep for me. Nevertheless, 
John, if you go on as you seem to have 
begun, I think you can answer it satisfac- 
torily for yourself after due time. She likes 
you.” 

‘‘She has promised to correspond with 
me,” he returned, cheerfully. 

A moment later they began a brisk dis- 
cussion of the matter which occupied all 
Margaret’s attention now — her return to 

N with John. Immediately after the 

holidays she was to go back with him, and 
they were to live together as cozily as econ- 
omy would permit. With Margaret’s expe- 
rience, John knew that she could make a 
charming little home. He counted on her 
help in keeping Harry Wickham from many 
a folly for which he was too prone. 

Margaret herself was something of an 
enigma to John ; she never talked freely to 
any human being of her thoughts and her 
emotions. She seemed greatly humanized, 
so to speak, since her care of Mrs. Allen, 
and perhaps as a result of her own trouble. 
She was softer in manner, gentler in speech, 
and he noticed that she was given to long 


324 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


seasons of thoughtful abstraction, as if she. 
were pondering something of weight. 

They came at last to the gate, where on 
the spotless snow was penciled the outline of 
the leafless branches over their heads. The 
unpainted house looked black by contrast 
with the whiteness all around, and no light 
shone from within. 

It is still empty. I would like to go in ; 
do you dread to do it 

‘‘No. You go around, John, and open 
the door for me.” 

He knew the method of entrance, and 
soon they were together. The full radiance 
of the moonlight poured in at the uncurtained 
windows, and the little old rooms were not 
gloomy. The sight of them moved John 
deeply, but not to melancholy. 

“I tell you, Margaret,” he exclaimed, 
leaning against the fireless old chimney, 
“a boy can't be thankful enough for such 
a past as God gave me. As I went along 
it was hard work and poverty pinched a 
little, but without realizing it I was learning 
what was to stand me well. When I see 
what flabby creatures some of the rich men's 


AFTER MANY DA YS. 


325 


sons at college are, I know it is a grand thing 
to have had just such a God-fearing, hard- 
working, honest father as we had. Two or 
three times since I went away I have had a 
tough fight to hold to the old faith that 
father got out of that big Bible I carried 
with me. Sometimes reason and Script- 
ure and prayer, even, didn’t all at once 
help me as the vision of those poor bent 
shoulders in the dusty brown coat. Can’t 
you remember father every morning of 
his life reading — just about on this flag- 
stone here — the chapter for the day? He 
never could have stayed sweet-tempered, 
patient and honest under the grind of his 
life without the love by which he lived.” 

John seemed not so much talking to his 
sister as to himself, but Margaret was stirred 
even to tears. She assured herself that it 
was merely the associations excited by the 
place, but deeper than these were thoughts 
that for the last two months had stolen un- 
bidden and unwelcomed into her hours of 
silence and imposed meditation. 

When John mentioned his father’s daily 
prayers there flashed into Margaret’s mind 


326 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


the memory of one morning in particular — 
a summer day when she was making ready 
for school. The sunshine fairly flooded the 
kitchen, where her mother was moving about 
doing the work that Margaret might begin 
school. She, a girl of fifteen, was very un- 
happy and cross, for her gingham dress was 
faded, and because of hard times ” all her 
attire seemed old and unsightly. She had 
inwardly resented it when her father said, 

‘‘ Well, Maggie child, wefll do our best for 
you soon, but to-day never mind a bit of 
gingham. See how the sunshine comes as 
golden to you as to a king’s daughter. Run 
along to school thinking about the trees in 
blossom and the birds, and you’ll feel rich.” 

Margaret had not felt rich ; she may have 
looked sullen, for she distinctly remembered 
that, contrary to his usual custom, he stopped 
at one verse and talked in his slow, simple 
fashion about the ‘‘riches” of God’s “good- 
ness and forbearance and long-sufiering.” 
The impression he then meant to make pro- 
duced no result, and was soon covered by the 
experiences of years, but it was there. 

“ John,” she said, “ I remember one time 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 


327 


in particular when father talked about a 
chapter he read. What is that verse of the 
Bible in which these words are?” She 
quoted what she could remember, and John 
returned : 

‘‘ ‘ Despisest thou the riches of his good- 
ness and forbearance and long-suffering ; not 
knowing that the goodness of God leadeth 
thee to repentance V ” He waited for her to 
say more, but after she had been silent a 
moment he added, If ever I preach, I 
think that will be the sum and substance 
of all my preaching. I don’t believe human 
hearts can resist God’s goodness if once a 
sense of it takes hold of them. ‘ Law,’ 
‘judgment,’ ‘hell,’ may be idle words to 
them, but Christ himself said, ‘I, if I be 
lifted up, will draw all men unto me ;’ and 
Christ is the incarnation of God’s goodness.” 

They went up the narrow stairs into the 
dingy room where John once slept, and he 
found his name cut on the glass; then, grow- 
ing cold, they ended their talk of old days 
and went out again into the moonlight. 

John chatted animatedly, hardly noticing 
how unresponsive IMargaret seemed. At 


328 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


last through those dull ears into that stubborn 
heart had fallen — not a thunderbolt of judg- 
ment, but a still small voice saying, “Not 
knowing that the goodness of God leadeth 
thee to repentance/’ 

Leaving John to talk with Doris, Marga- 
ret went to her room and sat alone to think. 
What did it mean that when the shadow of 
great desolation, the peril of blindness, hung 
black over her and she had said in her 
secret soul, “ I am wicked ; God knows it. 
He is powerful, and he means to punish me. 
I would defy him if I could, but I cannot. 
Only misery is left me,” — what did it mean 
that instead of that misery she sat here to- 
night, this last night in the year, in perfect 
health and strength, with eyes to see the 
moonlight and the dear faces of her friends ? 
Back to her came Mrs. Allen’s words, al- 
most smiled at when heard : 

“ Margaret, I know there is something 
that you have not reached, but I believe 
the Lord will bring you to it; some time, 
maybe, he will leave you alone long enough 
for you to see what you lack.” 

God’s goodness! For a while the real- 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 


329 


ization of what that meant to her, Marga- 
ret Edson — what all her selfish, proud, care- 
less life it had meant — swept over her like a 
flood. At first she scarcely thought of her- 
self, of how she had received that goodness, 
but while her heart was softened as never 
before she began to see herself, and truly 
she was swiftly, surely led to repentance. 
How mean and how basely ungrateful looked 
her past! She felt humbled in the very 
dust as for the first time it came to her that 
poor Mrs. Allen had all along gone hunger- 
ing and thirsting for the water of life, 
while she, her daily companion, had not 
made one eflbrt to give her true comfort 
— how, but for God’s mercy and Doris Bar- 
ton’s help, the poor soul might have gone 
out of life still sorrowing in darkness, igno- 
rant of the Light of the world. 

God never works on human hearts as we 
expect he may. Only that day Sarah Mears 
had said to herself, ‘‘Margaret Edson will 
have to have blow on blow to break her 
hard heart but the day was not done, and 
the tears were stealing down the girl’s face 
at the thought of her own nothingness and 


330 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


the infinite love that had followed her all 
the days of her life. 

John sat talking with Mr. Wickham 
until nearly midnight, then went quietly up 
stairs to his room. He had but lighted the 
gas when Margaret entered. 

‘‘ Why, Maggie,’’ he exclaimed, “ are you 
not asleep yet? How red your eyes look ! 
Are they worse?” 

In a moment John saw that the girl had 
been crying, and ceased to question her, 
only turning lower the light. 

“ John,” said Margaret, in an unsteady 
voice, ‘‘ Mrs. Allen wanted me to do some 
good with her money.” 

‘‘ Yes, Maggie.” 

“ Last week I gave three dollars to the 
freedmen ; I wanted to buy a Life of Goethe 
instead, but I did not dare.” 

‘‘Yes,” he said, with a vague perception 
that something more startling was to come. 

“ I have doled out at the rate of from one 
dollar to ten dollars every little while in 
subscriptions to Indians, negroes, Chinese, 
hospitals, and such things. Do you suppose 
that was Mrs. Allen’s idea? Do you think 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 


331 


she gave — or, rather, would have given — in 
that way after she began to want to give V 

Margaret’s manner was so impassioned 
that John could only reply. 

Tell me what is in your mind, Maggie. 
What makes you ask?” 

‘‘ Because I don’t see how such giving can 
please the Lord.” 

‘‘ If I gave to you with no more heart in 
the doing, would my gifts show any love?” 

‘‘ Not a bit, John. I am ashamed to-night, 
and sorry for — everything. I would like to 
begin over and give myself to the Lord if 
he will take me,” she exclaimed, tearfully. 

I see it all now ; it has been slowly coming 
to me these weeks since I knew I was not 
going to be blind. I do repent, and I do 
see God’s goodness. If I give him myself, 
perhaps the rest of the giving and living 
will follow easily.” 

It was astonishing to see how all Marga- 
ret’s self-assertion and reserve seemed for 
the time gone from her. It was as easy as 
possible for John, whose heart was full, to 
tell her over again the blessed gospel news 
of forgiveness through Christ and help from 


332 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


the Holy Spirit. She had heard, but never 
before listened to, it all ; but this night she 
received the kingdom of heaven as a little 
child. When, at last, she started to go to 
her own room, John, glancing at the clock, 
said, 

“ In a few minutes, Maggie, the New Year 
will come in ; let us pray it in, for I know 
it will be the best one of your life.” 

“And to-morrow — ” 

Maggie could not finish the sentence, but 
side by side the brother and the sister knelt 
in silent prayer. 

Now, at last, was Amos Edson’s petition 
of old answered : they were a family “ united 
in the Lord.” 


CHAPTEE XX. 


ENDING AND BEGINNING. 

F ive years have come and gone since the 
brother and the sister went from their 
native town to cast lots together for a while ; 
these had been very happy years, full of 
earnest endeavor toward whatsoever things 
are lovely and of good report. 

Margaret had been a constant inspiration 
as well as surprise to John. He thought he 
appreciated her, and he believed that she 
would prove not only an excellent financier 
and housekeeper, but a stimulating compan- 
ion intellectually. She was all that, and far 
more. Never again was it a question of how 
much must she give to her Lord and Master, 
but, like that one of old who loved much be- 
cause she was much forgiven, Margaret now 
lavished the whole wealth of her rich nature, 
heart, intellect and ambition, on the Christ 
who had arisen. 


333 


334 


AFTER THE FAILURE, 


When Margaret made her yearly visit to 
Doris and Sarah Mears, the latter never 
ceased to soliloquize after this style : 

Who could have supposed that such a 
glum, shut-up, awkward girl as she was 
ever could have changed so ? If she hadn’t 
got the love of the Lord Jesus in her heart 
early enough in her life to let it make her 
tender toward all humanity, she would have 
been a worker of evil — one of those godless 
women who can destroy more faith than a 
dozen unbelieving men.” 

But it was not written that John and 
Margaret were to stay together for all time. 
When his theological studies were ended, 
Margaret came to be with Doris a while ; for 
the “ correspondence ” had accomplished just 
what John always intended that it should 
effect, and the Kindergarten of the future 
was not to be carried on by Doris. 

There came a certain summer day when 
in the beautiful flower-adorned church Do- 
ris Barton was married to John Edson, and 
everybody but Sarah Mears declared it was 
just as it should be. She felt as if she had 
lost a daughter. She rallied, however, suffi- 


ENDING AND BEGINNING. 


335 


ciently to preside over a wedding-feast made 
as perfect as love and taste could dictate. 

Mr. Wickham not only marked the day 
by gifts as rare as he could have bestowed 
on his own children, but he donned a new 
wig— iron-gray this time — and faithfully 
promised the bride to put it on properly 
before the mirror when she should no longer 
be there to adjust it as of old. He indulged 
in playful attacks on the bridegroom for 
what he called his worldly-mindedness : 

‘‘ Humph ! I thought we were going to the 
far West to be home missionaries. Going to 
a big city church, are we 

‘‘Now, Mr. Wickham,^’ expostulated Sarah 
Mears, “ that is mean in you. John is going 
to be over a big church, but it ain’t no fash- 
ionable one, I can tell you : it is a great mis- 
sion that does a power of good among the 
poorest and worst classes in the city. He 
had a call to an aristocratic church, if he 
had hankered after it ; but when he had 
worked a while in this great mission church, 
the people wouldn’t let go of him. He never 
told me, but Margaret did tell how at last he 
said he dared not refuse. Yes, and he isn’t 


336 


AFTER THE FAILURE. 


sure of anything more than a living in the 
way of a salary, if he is of that.’’ 

Oh, never you mind, Sarah ; I’m only 
holding him down to terra firma. He’s too 
happy by half. — Oh, here is Miss Margaret, 
so radiant that if only I were thirty and my 
wig brown again, I should lose my heart. 
She’s satisfied ; she never believed in ‘ men 
of talent going ’way ofi* outside civilization.’ 
No home missionaries for you. Miss Edson ?” 

Margaret’s self-possession was usually per- 
fect, but the beautiful color rushed into her 
cheeks exactly as the mischievous old lawyer 
knew it would. Had not the Rev. Philip 
Floyd resigned his present charge and made 
known his intention of going to work in the 
far West? Had he not months ago inno- 
cently remarked that Miss Edson made him 
always think of Solomon’s saying that “a 
gracious woman retaineth honor ” ? Had he 
not been an almost daily caller at Miss 
Mears’s house of late? In short, as Mr. 
Wickham gravely suggested, a lawyer could 
not fail to note the circumstantial evidence 
in such a case. 




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